Author: thefreeonline

30 Jan, 2022 15:08 HomeRussia & FSU

The seeds of the current crisis were sown several decades ago, when Washington decided to double-deal with Moscow

By Professor Alfred de Zayas, an international law expert at the Geneva School of Diplomacy who served as a UN Independent Expert on International Order from 2012-18

FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / Kay Nietfeld

The current and rapidly escalating tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine have dominated international headlines and moved stock markets in recent weeks. In reality, they have their roots in a series of NATO actions and omissions following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989/91.

On the Russian side, there is a widespread perception that Moscow was misled by both Washington and NATO, a pervasive malaise about a breach of trust, and a violation of a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ on fundamental issues of national security.

While the US protests that it never gave assurances to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastwards, declassified documents prove otherwise.

But even in the absence of declassified documents and contemporary statements by political leaders in 1989/91, including Secretary of State James Baker and German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (which can be confirmed on YouTube), it is all too obvious that there is a festering wound caused by NATO’s eastward expansion over the past 30 years, which has undoubtedly negatively impacted Russia’s sense of security.

21st Century Wire | January 29, 2022

Later this week, England is scheduled to drop its problematic mask mandate for shops and public transport, along with its highly unpopular vaccine passport regime. Up north, Scotland says it will “relax” so-called ‘work from home guidance,’ and reopen nightclubs, as well as ending venue capacity limits.

While the UK and Ireland gingerly roll-back their highly disruptive COVID restriction policies, other European countries are now leading the way by scrapping the entire ‘pandemic’ regime altogether.

Financial Times reports…

Denmark said it would lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions and stop designating it a “societally critical” disease on Wednesday in the latest sign that western European countries are easing or even eradicating strict measures brought in to combat the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Magnus Heunicke, Denmark’s health minister, wrote to parliament on Wednesday saying that he would remove all Covid-19 restrictions on February 1, except for testing on arrival from abroad. Just as the Danish government did in September, when it lifted all restrictions, it will also stop calling Covid-19 a “societally critical disease”, meaning that it will no longer have the legal basis to introduce wide-ranging curbs.

“Tonight we can begin to lower our shoulders and find our smiles again,” said Mette Frederiksen, Danish prime minister, on Wednesday evening. “The pandemic is still here, but with what we know now, we can dare to believe we are through the critical phase.”

Denmark is the latest European country in recent days to announce it is dropping most or nearly all measures as it follows in the footsteps of the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands…

Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets like Politico report this latest development with the accompanied fear-mongering over the latest “subvariant” – allegedly on the loose:

The announcement comes as a new subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, is gaining a foothold in Denmark and driving infections up, with 46,000 new COVID-19 cases recorded on Wednesday.

“Recent weeks have seen very high infection rates, in fact the highest in the entire pandemic,” Frederiksen said. “Therefore, it may seem strange and paradoxical that we are now ready to let go of the restrictions.”

Some 82 percent of Denmark’s population is fully vaccinated with two doses, of whom 50 percent are boosted with a third dose, according to the Danish Health and Medicines Authority.

However, as the FT points out, with this alleged rise in “cases” (aka PCR positive tests) promoted in the media – there is no corresponding rise in serious illness as a result COVID-19:

Denmark still has one of the highest number of Covid-19 cases per capita in the world, currently more than 10 times its previous peak as Omicron causes tens of thousands of daily infections. But the number of patients in intensive care continues to fall and, even with Omicron, never hit the peaks reached from April 2020 and January 2021.

Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Finland have all announced they will also be easing their restrictions in the coming weeks.

30 Jan, 2022 10:57 Home World News on RT by Damian Wilson

British soldiers massacred 13 people on the streets of Derry in 1972. RT spoke to a man who lost his father on that fateful day in Bogside

FILE PHOTO. Thousands march with the Northern Irish Civil Rights Assn. in Newry during a civilian protest organised in response to the shooting of 14 civilians by British paratroopers the week before, 2nd February 1972. © Getty Images / William L. Rukeyser

For the first time in 50 years, the crowds gathering in Derry this weekend to remember the events of the day forever known as Bloody Sunday will have some certainty.

\Certainty that the innocence of the 13 men and boys murdered on January 30, 1972 has been acknowledged, but also certainty that true justice has eluded them. 

But that won’t stop the families of those killed and wounded by trigger-happy British Parachute Regiment soldiers in half an hour of bloodshed from celebrating what they’ve achieved in the years since. And it hasn’t stopped Enniskillen-born actor Adrian Dunbar, star of the hit TV police drama ‘Line of Duty’ from accepting an invitation to talk to his fellow Northern Irishmen and women on Sunday as they meet together to remember the past and pray for the future.  READ MORE: Bloody Sunday, 50 years on: MP Francie Molloy slams British government for cover-up (E1101)

Among them will be Tony Doherty, who was just nine years old at the time. On the stone memorial at the foot of Rossville Street in Derry, his father’s name, ‘Patrick J. Doherty’, is at the top of the list of those mown down in the area of the city known as Bogside when the British Army opened fire on peaceful civil-rights marchers.

Patsy Doherty was shot by a soldier as he attempted to crawl to safety. Thirteen died that day and a fourteenth succumbed to his injuries a few months later. 

Speaking exclusively to RT.com this week, Tony said, “It was at the hospital that a lot of the families, who became known as the Bloody Sunday families, met one another for the first time, as the remains of their recently murdered loved ones were strewn throughout the morgue.” 

His mother, Eileen, was among those identifying the bodies recovered from the street where they had fallen, having been notified that her husband had been shot.

\ “When she first got the call, she didn’t know how badly my father had been hurt,” said Tony. “But when she got over to the hospital, she was only able to identify his body.”  FILE PHOTO. A victim of the shooting by British paratroopers of 14 civilians during a civil rights march lies on the pavement near to Rossville Flats in Londonderry, 30th January 1972. © Getty Images / William L. Rukeyser

That left the widow with a duty no parent ever expects or deserves. “She had to come back and tell her six children that their father had been shot dead,” Tony said. 

If Americans Knew: Senators and House members vote to give Israel billions of US tax dollars every year.

Therefore, they have a moral obligation to learn what they are funding.

Demand that they view this 2-minute video to see the 78 Palestinian children Israel killed in 2021 with our tax money:

on You Tube HERE> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3LpoGmN3TU

If Americans Knew: 2-minute video on the 78 Palestinian children killed by Israel in 2021, and the 1 Israeli child killed by Palestinians — Palestine Will Never Die

by Off Guardian..original HERE: https://off-guardian.org/….

+ 993 Comments!

by Kit Knightly

We get a lot of e-mails and private messages along these lines “do you have a source for X?” or “can you point me to mask studies?” or “I know I saw a graph for mortality, but I can’t find it anymore”. And we understand, it’s been a long 18 months, and there are so many statistics and numbers to try and keep straight in your head.

So, to deal with all these requests, we decided to make a bullet-pointed and sourced list for all the key points. A one-stop-shop.

Here are key facts and sources about the alleged “pandemic”, that will help you get a grasp on what has happened to the world since January 2020, and help you enlighten any of your friends who might be still trapped in the New Normal fog (click links to skip):

“Covid deaths” – Lockdowns – PCR Tests – “asymptomatic infection” – Ventilators – Masks – Vaccines – Deception & Foreknowledge

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Part I: “Covid deaths” & mortality

1. The survival rate of “Covid” is over 99%. Government medical experts went out of their way to underline, from the beginning of the pandemic, that the vast majority of the population are not in any danger from Covid. https://www.youtube.com/embed/adj8MCsZKlg

Almost all studies on the infection-fatality ratio (IFR) of Covid have returned results between 0.04% and 0.5%. Meaning Covid’s survival rate is at least 99.5%.

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2. There has been NO unusual excess mortality. The press has called 2020 the UK’s “deadliest year since world war two”, but this is misleading because it ignores the massive increase in the population since that time. A more reasonable statistical measure of mortality is Age-Standardised Mortality Rate (ASMR):

By this measure, 2020 isn’t even the worst year for mortality since 2000, In fact since 1943 only 9 years have been better than 2020.

Similarly, in the US the ASMR for 2020 is only at 2004 levels:

For a detailed breakdown of how Covid affected mortality across Western Europe and the US click here. What increases in mortality we have seen could be attributable to non-Covid causes [facts 7, 9 & 19].

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3. “Covid death” counts are artificially inflated. Countries around the globe have been defining a “Covid death” as a “death by any cause within 28/30/60 days of a positive test”.

Healthcare officials from Italy, Germany, the UK, US, Northern Ireland and others have all admitted to this practice:

Removing any distinction between dying of Covid, and dying of something else after testing positive for Covid will naturally lead to over-counting of “Covid deaths”. British pathologist Dr John Lee was warning of this “substantial over-estimate” as early as last spring. Other mainstream sources have reported it, too.

Considering the huge percentage of “asymptomatic” Covid infections [14], the well-known prevalence of serious comorbidities [fact 4] and the potential for false-positive tests [fact 18], this renders the Covid death numbers an extremely unreliable statistic.

Flooding the planet with plastics from US Fracking Glut: Big Oil’s answer to Climate Emergency

Neighbors of the new Gulf Coast Growth Ventures facility near Corpus Christi say ExxonMobil and SABIC have left them in the dark while courting local regulators.

By Julie DermanskyonJan 27, 2022 @ 06:00 PST

The same day ExxonMobil announced its ambition to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, word spread that its mammoth plastics manufacturing complex near Corpus Christi, Texas, had begun production. 

The facility, known as an ethane steam cracker, will feed the production of nurdles – tiny pellets that serve as raw materials for plastic products. The plant’s state air permit allows it to send more than 3.5 million tons per year of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

To Hell with the Planet. U.S. frack glut Plan is booming cheap Plastics

“We are up and operating. We have been for a while,” Paul B. Fritsch, site manager for ExxonMobil’s joint venture with Saudi Basic Industries Corp, (SABIC), told the governing body of the Port of Corpus Christi at its Jan. 18 meeting.

see also> BBC – Newsday, Chemical pollution passes …safe limit for humanity – study. Human-produced chemicals are now at a level that will impact humans says study. New research shows that the cocktail of 350,000 chemicals that mankind now manufactures for use around the world has exceeded boundaries of what is safe for the stability of the Earth’s ecosystem. The toxicity and damage caused by many of these chemicals is understood, but the long-term effects of thousands of them is still unknown. …

The irony of promising net-zero emissions while firing up a greenhouse-gas polluter was not lost on some critics.

“Pledging to make your operations ‘net zero’ when your entire raison d’etre is to continue producing the fossil fuels destroying the livable world: this is like pledging to become more energy-efficient when your business is manufacturing electric chairs,” Genevieve Guenther, an author and activist who specializes in fossil-fuel industry disinformation, wrote on Twitter the day of ExxonMobil’s announcement.

The ExxonMobil-SABIC partnership, known as Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (GCGV), began construction of the plant in once-rural San Patricio County, on Texas’ Coastal Bend, in 2019.

View of Corpus Christi from the Nueces Bay Causeway. Credit: Julie Dermansky

The GCGV facility is in addition to 31 new petrochemical projects along the Texas and Louisiana coasts that collectively will generate 50 million tons of greenhouse-gas pollution — the equivalent of 11 new coal-fired power plants, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.