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By Jacopo DeMarinis

Artificial intelligence (AI) is bound to be a major technological force that will reshape the 21st century. But its reverberating effects will not be confined to the technological; the evolution of AI will greatly influence other spheres, particularly in the military and international relations realms. Moreover, the increasing use of AI in the military sphere and the growing intelligence of AI―given its increasing ability to address ever more complex tasks and the imminent emergence of artificial “general intelligence”―will accelerate the timing and intensity of its impacts.

Militaries worldwide, especially among the major powers, have been integrating AI into their military strategies, conventional weapons, and even their nuclear command structure. One example of the military use of AI occurred in March 2020 when, according to a UN report, a “lethal autonomous weapons system” was deployed in Libya. The greatest threats posed by the military use of AI reside in the development of autonomous weapons systems that do not require human oversight and the increased use of automated battlefield decision-making systems, which are vulnerable to manipulation by adversaries. Automated decision making is particularly risky in the context of nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, the military use of AI may degrade international peace and stability given the risks of accidents in the AI software, unintentional conflict due to concerns about how the AI systems will be used, and inadvertent escalation of conflict stemming from the inflexibility of AI systems and human overreliance on them. In sum, the increased deployment of autonomous weapons systems and automated battlefield decision-making systems could enhance great power conflict and greatly undermine strategic stability, potentially driving a country to launch nuclear weapons.

Given what is at stake and the global nature of this technological actor, it is vital that the international community unite to establish global norms, regulations, and, when necessary, institutions for the safe and responsible development and use of AI in military contexts. Various state actors and think tanks support stronger international cooperation to address the military use of AI, including the US government, which recently released a “Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy” calling for international humanitarian law to guide the development and implementation of AI in the military. Proactively shaping the development of military AI, rather than reacting haphazardly to its effects, will allow humankind to leverage the benefits of AI and minimize the threats it poses to a peaceful society.

So, how can we leverage global governance to effectively address the dangers of the military use of AI? Michael Klare, a Senior Fellow at the Arms Control Association (ACA), advocates for a framework that suggests starting with non-binding, Track-2 diplomacy (among scientists, arms control experts, etc.) and unilateral/bilateral initiatives and then advancing toward “strategic stability” talks and formal, binding treaties. The “strategic stability” talks would resemble the current US-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue but would also include powers like China. Furthermore, this framework stresses the importance of confidence-building measures (CBMs) to enhance trust between the relevant parties. While the US could assume leadership to propose CBMs such as a “Dialogue on AI Safety and Strategic Stability” and standard-setting for the military use of AI, it is critical that all countries participate equally in this process. While CBMs are critical, it is important to note that many civil society groups, including the ACA, stress the importance of binding, enforceable international agreements that regulate the use of AI in military contexts.

So, what about international treaties to govern the military uses of AI? The ACA and countries like Spain and Mexico support regulating lethal autonomous weapons systems through the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons framework treaty, a position that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres supports. Another idea- supported by WFM/IGP- is to negotiate a UN Framework Convention on AI (similar to the UNFCCC) which would drive further international negotiations regarding the creation and implementation of ethical AI principles in military and other contexts. Furthermore, The Millennium Project supports a UN Treaty on Artificial General Intelligence, which would help set the “initial conditions” for artificial general intelligence, including in the military domain.

And what about international institutions? Proposals have been advanced for establishing an “International Artificial Intelligence Agency” that would act like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, the ability to effectively monitor AI technology could prove more difficult than nuclear technology, and adequate enforcement remains a persistent issue. Additionally, an Intergovernmental Panel for Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), supported by government officials like France’s Emmanuel Macron, could complement a UN Framework Convention on AI and enhance inclusivity in AI global governance.

Clearly, the world public should play a role in shaping the future of AI, especially in military contexts. The UN’s Global Digital Compact is a good start. However, given the fast-paced evolution of AI and other emerging technologies, it is critical to enhance the opportunities for individual and civil society input in AI global governance; a single dialogue is not enough. One idea to streamline worldwide public participation is to establish an International Science & Technology Organization, as proposed by the Millennium Project. An International S & T Organization would be an “online collective intelligence platform” that could facilitate a continuous dialogue among members of the global community regarding science and technology, including new military uses of AI.

To create the conditions for lasting peace and stability in a world increasingly shaped by emerging technologies, it is crucial to develop and implement AI technologies purposefully and in consultation with all of humanity. And developing these technologies “the right way”―in accordance with our values―may necessitate slowing down and prioritizing how we deploy these technologies rather than how quickly we do so. One need only look at the recent US Supreme Court case challenging the immunity that internet and social media companies enjoy. Is it not preferable to establish a strong, just foundation for these technologies from the outset? Or would we rather suffer the unintended consequences of an unrestrained global obsession with military dominance?

Jacopo DeMarinis is a graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently the Social Media and Communications Coordinator at Citizens for Global Solutions, a grassroots organization that promotes world government.

16 July 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

Open Letter to Friends, Enemies, and People Who Have No Idea Who I Am

I write as an American who has lived mostly in Hiroshima since 1984 to beg you to attend the Humanity for Peace gathering at the UN on August 6 this year from 13:00 to 16:00. I’m writing because I suspect many of you will look at the list of sponsors and speakers and decide you have something better to do because you don’t want to be associated with some of these kooks. I suspect you think some of them are quite crazy or puppets for Putin or too pacifistic or not pacifistic enough or funded by the CIA or the State Department or the Kremlin or Beijing or Ploughshares or ICAN. Some may even have competed with you for a grant or a lover or maybe insulted you at a public forum. So I am begging you. Just for August 6, 2023, from 1 to 4pm, don’t let it matter. Don’t let anything matter other than standing against nuclear annihilation.

I would be with you if I could, but I’m writing from Hiroshima where there are 300 peace groups and hundreds of thousands of people who care deeply about peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons but where peace people never do anything together because they have “differences.” Some people like certain people while others don’t and, instead, like other people because certain people are too radical, possibly even communist, or not radical enough, possibly even shills for the nuclear industry because they believe nuclear power is OK, or maybe all things nuclear are bad but American bases are a necessary evil, or American bases must go, but Article 9 must stay, or Japan should be a normal country or the Japanese are all peace-demented or A-bomb survivor trees are the best way to promote peace or A-bomb survivor trees don’t grow fast enough given the imminent danger we are in.

I have no idea what you have planned for August 6, but please make sure that it includes standing in front of the UN from 1 to 4pm. Humanity for Peace needs a million people there. Humanity needs to frighten the police and the UN and all the rich people in New York. Humanity needs them thinking that millions of humans are scared of what is happening and will vote against anyone who says even one kind word about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine or Taiwan or anywhere else. Nuclear war is humanity’s red line. Don’t even think about it, you $$$$$$$$!!!!

It will do no good to have a few thousand people standing in front of the UN while a few thousand more are vigiling at Ground Zero and a few hundred more are listening to great speeches in Riverside Church. Humanity is being tested. Will we learn to cooperate enough to keep our planet habitable or will the last Russian and the last American die shooting at each other? If we don’t start cooperating soon, we will be extinct by 2050, according to Nature, the magazine. If we end up going extinct this century, it will be because peace people can no longer cooperate enough to get a million people into one place even to stop nuclear war and even in New York.

Sincerely,
Steve Leeper
Chairman, Peace Culture Village
Former chairman, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation
Former US rep, Mayors for Peace

By Ramzy Baroud

The deadly Israeli invasion of Jenin on July 3 was not a surprise.

Also, unsurprising is the fact that the killing of 12 Palestinians, wounding of 120 more and the destruction of nearly 80 percent of the Jenin Refugee Camp’s homes and infrastructure will not make an iota of a difference.

Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his lofty promises of destroying the “safe haven … of the terrorist enclave in Jenin”, must have known that his bloody exercise was ultimately futile.

Indeed, as the Israeli military machine was toppling homes, smashing cars and harvesting lives, several Palestinian retaliatory attacks were reported, including in Tel Aviv, on July 4, and in the Kedumim illegal settlement on July 6.

In fact, unlike the Israeli response to the Second Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) of 2000, extreme violence will not weaken, but heighten Palestinian Resistance and counter attacks.

Back then, the Palestinian Authority had a degree of control over Palestinian groups and managed, although with great difficulties, to contain the Palestinian street.

Now, the PA has no such leverage.

Indeed, when a delegation of PA officials visited Jenin on July 5, to show ‘solidarity’ and to promise help in the recovery efforts, Jenin residents kicked the officials out of their camp.

Thus, neither did Israel manage to regain any kind of control over Jenin, nor did the PA succeed in reinventing itself as the savior of the people.

So, what was the point of all of this?

Writing in Haaretz, Zvi Bar’el linked the whole Jenin operation, dubbed ‘House and Garden’, to Netanyahu’s “loss of political control” over his government; in fact, the whole country.

It was “a showy operation”, Bar’el wrote, and “no sensible person in the army or the Shin Bet security service, or even in the silent circles of the right, actually believed that the operation would eradicate” the armed resistance, not only in Jenin, but anywhere throughout the West Bank.

A ‘showy operation’, indeed, and the best proof of that is the language emanating from official Israeli sources, lead among them Netanyahu himself.

The politically, but also legally embattled rightwing Israeli leader bragged about his army’s “comprehensive action”, carried out in “very systemic way … from the ground, from the air (and) with superb intelligence.”

He vowed to “return to Jenin” if “Jenin returns to terror”, and this “will happen much faster and with much greater power than what people might imagine.”

Tel Aviv’s Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, also spoke about the military’s “success”, in “deal(ing) a heavy blow to the terror organizations in Jenin”, and recording “impressive operational achievements.”

But none of this hyped language is true. What Israel refers to as ‘terror organizations’ in Jenin is part of a much larger phenomenon of armed Resistance, itself an outcome of an even larger movement of popular resistance that is felt in every corner of Occupied Palestine.

Quelling the rebellion is not a question of firepower. To the contrary, Israel’s ‘impressive operational achievement’ has simply poured fuel on a raging fire.

To distract from his mounting problems, and to keep his hardline coalitions of far-right politicians and their popular base of illegal Jewish settlers happy, Netanyahu has done the most foolish thing. He has simply turned a potential armed rebellion in Palestine to an imminent West Bank-wide revolution.

Unlike the Second Intifada, neither Israel nor the PA has any leverage over the new generation of Palestinian resisters. They are neither moved by false promises of a state, of jobs, of international funds, nor seem to fear threats of detention, torture or even death.

To the contrary, the greater the violence Israel metes out against Palestinians, the more emboldened they become.

Any examination of the political discourse of this new Palestinian generation, including that of social media, demonstrates a degree of fearlessness that is truly unprecedented.

This courage can be attributed in part to Gaza, whose ongoing resistance, despite the siege and horrific wars in the last two decades have greatly impacted the youth of the West Bank.

And, while PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Palestinian enemies engaged in a protracted charade of ‘national unity talks’ and ‘power sharing’, the new generation operated entirely independent from these superficial and insincere slogans.

Though they were mostly born or matured after the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, they perceive the political language and culture of that era as alien to them.

It is as if two different Palestines exist – one of Abbas, Fatah, factions, Oslo, donors’ money, ‘peace process’ and dirty politics and another of united Resistance on the ground, sumoud (steadfastness), Gaza, Jenin, Nablus, Lions’ Den and more.

Neither Netanyahu and Gallant, nor Abbas and his PA allies seem to understand, nor are willing to understand this historical shift in political discourses, cultures and language.

They are disinterested in the cultural shift simply because it does not serve the status quo, which has served them well. Netanyahu wants to stay in power as long as possible; Gallant wants to demonstrate his military prowess – for the sake of running for a higher office in the future – and Abbas wants to keep whatever share of power and money allocated to him.

Perhaps, at a deeper level, they all understand that what worked in the past – more violence in the case of Israel and more financial bribes and corruption in the case of the PA, will not work in the present.

Yet, they are likely to stay the course simply because they are weak, desperate and have no long-term visions, let alone real understanding of what is transpiring in Palestine now.

In some ways, it is a generational problem, and a conflict.

As soon as Israel invaded Jenin, all the traditional actors returned to the old script of previous Israeli wars and invasions. They scurried into position, using the ever-predictable language, approving, condemning, applauding and cautioning.

For the older generation, time has stood still. But it has not. The new Palestinian generation has buried the ghosts of the past and moved on. And now, they are ready to speak for themselves and to fight for themselves. Jenin is just the start.

The greater the violence Israel metes out against Palestinians, the more emboldened they become (Ramzy Baroud)

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books.

14 July 2023

By Maung Zarni

This week Aung San Suu Kyi’s fairy like re-emergence into the international policy circles was reported by Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai at the Association of South East Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta hosted by the current and rotating Chair. Jailed on trumped up corruption charges, and held incommunicado by Myanmar’s coup junta, the ousted civilian leader reportedly “encouraged dialogue” with the widely hated junta engulfed in multiple crises.

I do not doubt that the reported meeting took place. No official would concoct such a story. Having studied her leadership over the last 30 years, I also do not second guess the Thai guest’s relayed message that she is “open to dialogue” with the repressive military, or she “encouraged dialogue” amongst all warring parties in Myanmar’s perennial domestic conflict. On so many public and media occasions, including BBC’s Flagship Radio 4, the populist leader has said repeatedly that she “genuinely (read unconditionally) loved” the soldiers whom she felt were surrogate “brothers” serving in the army which her martyred father Aung San founded and led.

Love in the way one feels about a particular institution or particular population may be understandable – as in nationalism or patriotism. But it is both unprincipled and counter-productive for Suu Kyi to be voicing support for dialogue with no preconditions with the mass-murderous regime in Naypyidaw. Even as she was meeting the Thai visitor for over an hour, her military jailors were routinely carrying out air strikes against pro-democracy civilian communities – not as “collateral damage” but as “legitimate targets” – or severely restricting the humanitarian activities of international bodies including United Nations’ agencies and INGOs –to provide emergency support to nearly 2 million people displaced by violence. That’s roughly the total number of Rohingya people about half of whom fled the genocide in Western Myanmar in 2016 and 2017.

Against this backdrop, the jailed and failed transitional leader’s support for unconditional dialogue with the killers has potential to do more harm than good to the common mission of at least ending violent and oppressive military rule through both peaceful civil disobedience and widespread armed revolt.

There are four problems with her call for dialogue.

Problem one

First, the leaders of the National Unity Government (NUG) and the Committee Representing People’s Hluttaw or Parliament (CRPH) have repeatedly urged their grassroots supporters to support the NUG-led armed resistance. These leaders have been driving home amongst Myanmar public their central message – the blood debt precludes any talk (with the cruel military) – at every opportunity. How does Ms Suu Kyi’s message of “open dialogue” square with the anti-coup resistance’s consensus message of national liberation, as it were, by any means necessary? After all, these NUG and CRPH leaders view themselves as “second” and “third line” leaders from Ms Suu Kyi’s ousted National League for Democracy.

Problem two

Second, this message by NUG and CRPH has obviously resonated very well with the public, which has in turn resulted in “donations for the revolution”, to the tune of over $100 million. It is this grassroots financing from the Burmese public in Myanmar, neighbouring countries and western countries, that has sustained the armed resistance and the Civil Disobedience Movement. Notably, there has been an absence of material and financial assistance from any state during the 2.5 years old resistance movement. Even the United States Government – and the Congress – have limited the American support to “non-lethal assistance” while having poured nearly $80 billion worth of arms and other forms of support into Ukraine’s resistance in less than 2 years.

Wise or not, the anti-coup public want to see the complete eviction of the military. They want to see the genocidal generals dragged out of power by the latter’s feet, literally. For the military has, since the coup of February 2021, been engaged in what I would call a series of “mini-genocides”, that is, scorched-earth methods of destruction of pro-democracy villages and neighbourhoods throughout different ethnic regions including Myanmar Buddhists in the central plains of Saggaing and Magwe, as well as ethnic Chin in the highlands in Western Myanmar and Karenni in the region next to Thailand.

To get a sense of the scale of death and destruction, over 64,000 homes have been torched or otherwise destroyed by the junta troops in the last 2 years since the February coup of 2021. This figure is almost twice as big as 38,000 Rohingya homes (in over 300 villages) destroyed during the same military’s 2017 wave of genocidal destruction. [See the US Holocaust Memorial Museum reports on Rohingya genocide here].

What would happen to the financial and community support to the armed resistance that has not only sustained its momentum but took territorial and administrative control of some of the most important heartland’s regions? Saggaing and Magwe historically provided the largest number of military recruits to the country’s armed forces. Even these Bama Buddhist nationalist enclaves no longer accept the junta as their Bama brethren. Likewise, ethnic resistance organizations in the important frontier states such as Chin and Karenni regions have practically driven out a large number of the junta troops from their regions.

Problem three

Third, as Tria Dianti wrote for the Radio Free Asia, groups representing Myanmar’s civil society met just last week with Ngurah Swajaya, the head of the ASEAN Special Envoy’s office and delivered their unadulterated “No” to any talks with Myanmar junta, which they rightly characterise as “terrorist”. During the meeting, this coalition of grassroots resisters spelled out to the Indonesian diplomat the coalition’s official position: “the Special Envoy’s official engagement with the illegal military junta is inconsistent with ASEAN’s decision and stance to exclude and ban members of the military junta from all high-level ASEAN meetings.” Their message – delivered less than 7 days ago – is diametrically opposed to Ms Suu Kyi’s “openness to dialogue”.

Amongst the participants were representatives of both armed and non-violence organizations with national reach including Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA), Chin Students’ Union of Myanmar, General Strike Collaboration Committee (GSCC), General Strike Committee (GSC), General Strike Committee of Nationalities (GSCN), General Strike Coordination Body (GSCB), Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), Kachin State Civilian Movement (KSCM), Karen Student Network Group (KSNG), Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), and Sagaing Forum.

Many of these networks are made up of, and led by, Generation Z resisters and other progressive Myanmar dissidents. They openly embrace Rohingya as integral part of Myanmar’s ethnic tapestry and disdain Ms Suu Kyi’s collaboration with (her) “Father’s military” whenever the troops launch vicious military operations against Rohingya, Kachin, Rakhine Buddhists, farm and labour activists and journalists. They are not going to be swayed by Ms Suu Kyi’s empty encouragement for dialogue, or external actors’ message of pacificism in the face of the junta’s brutal and relentless repression.

Will these mutually exclusive stances – Ms Suu Kyi’s dialogue with no preconditions or the general consensus in the resistance, no dialogue whatsoever with the terrorist junta – tear the society apart?

Troublingly, these fundamentals differences will likely trigger the horizontal violence amongst armed resistance groups, between those still blindly loyal to Suu Kyi, and those segments of the resistance that have embraced the post-coup revolutionary movement as a genuinely democratic alternative to Aung San Suu Kyi’s domestically failed and globally disgraced leadership?

Problem four

Fourth and finally, there is a timely and crucial question to be raised about Aung San Suu Kyi’s moral leadership, political integrity, and intellectual capacity to think through difficult challenges that have confronted the country in turbulent transition.

After all, even with her unfettered access to expertise, advice, public opinion and intelligence reports, Aung San Suu Kyi, both as opposition leader and subsequently the de facto head of state, has made a series of monumental errors with long-term consequences for the country – and her people.

As the opposition leader, she railed against farm and rural protest movement that sought to mitigate the devastating ecological and communal impact stemming from the Chinese mining projects, jointly conducted by the military. As the State Counsellor, the position she called “above the president”, she sung the official praise of Myanmar’s military while the latter launched military operations against Rakhine Buddhists, and her civilian Telecommunications Ministry shut down the Internet for the entire state of Rakhine for 2 years. And most infamously, she chose to defend the indefensible when she turned up at the International Court of Justice to defend and deny the military’s genocide against Rohingya Muslims. Remember how for months she justified prosecution of the two Burmese journalists working for Reuters on grounds of national security: they had the hard evidence of the military’s genocidal massacres, and they were trying to do their job of reporting on the factually verified story.

For its own bloc interests, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of course, is likely to capitalize on Suu Kyi’s message of “openness to dialogue” to continue to tinker with its fruitless 5 Point Consensus (5PCs), which many Myanmar analysts see as “dead upon arrival”.

I for one see no bright prospect in either ASEAN’s efforts or Aung San Suu Kyi’s hold on certain segments of Myanmar public.

Ms Suu Kyi’s abysmal record on neo-liberal economic policies, anti-Muslim racist politics and typically autocratic decisions have clearly demonstrated that she lacks a clear federalist democratic vision. And equally important, she shares the military’s Bama Buddhist chauvinism wherein both her policies and the military’s treat the non-Bama ethnic communities as “junior partners” in nation-building.

By way of prediction, she will continue to speak in her characteristically vague and empty rhetoric of “dialogue.” Ms Suu Kyi’s captors will carry on using any process of dialogue, not to seek lasting peace or build a new kind of politics based on the federal principles of ethnic group equality and democratic control of the country’s armed forces, but rather to wiggle themselves out of the violent corner they have created for themselves. After all, it is the original coup regime of 1962 led by General Ne Win which launched nationwide “peace dialogue” in 1963 while it and successive military regimes have since proceeded to plunge the country into further strife and turmoil in the ensuing 60-years.

Tragically, the public will become increasingly confused as to who is providing the pro-democracy leadership or which path – revolutionary or the status quo of the Suu Kyi-military deal, which will undoubtedly be backed by ASEAN.

Maung Zarni

Banner image: Aung San Statue Yangon, Wikimedia Commons, & Aung San Suu Kyi historical figure, Wikimedia Commons.

Dr Maung Zarni is a scholar, educator and human rights activist with 30-years of involvement in Burmese political affairs, Zarni has been denounced as an “enemy of the State” for his opposition to the Myanmar genocide.

14 July 2023

Source: forsea.co

By Peter Koenig

About a week ago, the UN Human Rights Czar in Geneva issued a stern warning – “Up to 80 million people will be plunged into hunger if climate targets are not met”.

These are the words of Volker Turk, the head of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. He spoke at a Human Rights event, and highlighted as principal cause for this coming calamity – what else – “climate change”. He said,

“extreme weather events were having a significant negative impact on crops, herds and ecosystems, prompting further concerns about global food availability.”

This is immediately proven by never-before-in-history extreme floods in Vermont, USA, by extreme droughts in Europe and Central – Western USA and by enormous, never-before experienced – forest fires in Canada. More is already announced – extreme Monsoon rains in India, and possibly Bangladesh. What a coincidence. Except, there are no coincidences. Droughts and gigantic flashfloods, in calculated interchange. No coincidences.

Most people of this globe just simply cannot believe how evil some non-people are. The Covid crime and the vaccination genocide was not enough to open their eyes, that their governments cannot be trusted, that they are sold, either by money or by threats, to an extreme evil power, a Depopulation, a Eugenics Cult which is behind it all.

Mr. Turk went on claiming,

“More than 828 million people faced hunger in 2021, and climate change is projected to place up to 80 million more people at risk of hunger by the middle of this century.”

Further contributing to the drama, he added, “Our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying”; and that these factors will combine to lead humanity towards a “dystopian future” unless urgent and immediate action is taken by environmental policymakers.

And then came the MUST reference to the 2015 (COP) Paris Agreement often referred to as the Paris Climate Accords, which were adopted by 196 parties at the time. COP means “Conference of the Parties”. Adding to the confusion of UN jargons, it refers to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose signatories agreed to cap global warming below 2 degrees celsius above the 1850-1900 levels – or to 1.5 degrees celsius if possible. Does anyone understand the language to carry out this easy task?

Such an arrogant statement – humans making the weather with their sheer lifestyles – should already ring a strong bell in a clear-thinking mind of normal humans, but it doesn’t, because our pineal gland for logical thinking and perception of emotions has been gradually dumbed, reduced, even killed in some people with chemicals we eat regularly und imperceptibly in our daily food, chemicals sprayed from the air via chemtrails, “disinfectant” chemicals in the water, the uncountable PCR tests, with absolutely scientifically proven unnecessary sticks up the nose, to the thin separation between nose and brain – and pineal gland — and more.

To dull our sentiments and perception is a long-term goal that “our Masters” have been working on for the last at least hundred years – or longer.

Dulled minds are easier to manipulate. Add to this DARPA’s MK-Ultra and Monarch mind-manipulation program and we know why we are where we are.

Our mental desensitization is the product of a long-term plan, namely precisely the plan that is currently being implemented by the WEF’s Great Reset and the UN Agenda 2030. That just shows that the UN is totally compromised by a “deep state” system, or Diabolical Cult that is way stronger than all our international agencies together.

Incidentally, Bill Gates said once in an interview that even should he “disappear”, the system goes on; it had been prepared for a century or more. You won’t find this reference anymore anywhere on internet. But this is the level of well-planned evil that we are facing NOW – The Great Reset, the UN Agenda 2030, and the all-digitizing 4^th Industrial Revolution. All executed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the United Nations, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

They are the willing forefront of an enormously powerful financial behemoth which wants to stay in the dark, both literally and figuratively. Those who work the buttons for the Monster, have been promised “paradise”, or being part of the elite. Enough to buy their soul.

This financial elite system is controlling every sector of production, of food supply, of energy availability, and, indeed, of “climate change”. Yes, man-made climate change, but not the type that is supposedly carbon-based and depending on the human carbon footprint.

We are talking about highly sophisticated Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD), that are and have been causing extreme monsoons in Pakistan last year, this year already announced in India and possibly Bangladesh, and wherever an unruly population needs to be reined in, and where basic infrastructure and housing, as well as food crops must be destroyed, in order to create human misery, famine and death – and as a byproduct human obedience.

Would anybody like to pretend that Mr. Human Rights, Mr. Turk, when he speaks at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, does not know the facts? He is betraying the very people he has been mandated to defend and protect.

Massive depopulation, meaning, worldwide genocide, never seen before in human history – currently ongoing – it is Number One of the REAL 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), i.e. UN Agenda 2030. What the 17 SDGs say on the surface is but a smoke screen. The real meaning is reflected in this depiction – in Spanish – from Thereal2030.org – see this.

What Mr. Turk, Human Rights advocate, is saying goes exactly in the opposite direction of Human Rights. Mr. Turk, as the UN defender of Human Rights, the world’s highest Human Rights Officer, instead of protecting humans, he is sending them to death with the “climate change” narrative, with the false pretense that climate change will create and increase massive famine and death, if humanity and their leaders will not adhere to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreements.

This narrative is correct when applied to the since the 1940’s scientifically developed, today highly sophisticated ENMOD technologies. But people do not know, they are on purpose being indoctrinated that the “climate change” which they live is the result of humanities excessive carbon footprint. That is an absolute lie.

Mr. Turk, like all those who order him to help reduce humanity rather than protect humanity, knows very well that humans cannot change the climate by reducing the carbon footprint, because the human carbon footprint has an absolute minimal impact on what is called “global warming” or “climate change”.

Even if humanity would reach a “net zero carbon emission”, the climate would keep changing as it did for the about 4 billion years Mother Earth exists. The earth, like all the planets in the universe are dynamic beings, lives, if you will.

The climate is not influenced by humans, but to more than 97% by the sun, by sun movements. This is attested by any serious scientist – and more and more of those come to the fore to confront the ever-growing climate crime. And these sun-influenced dynamic changes are slow processes, over thousands of years, not noticeable within the extremely short time span of a human life.

Today, the world’s total energy use is still based to about 85% on hydrocarbons, and unless the world economy is made to completely collapse by the infamous slogan of “net zero carbon use”, or there is a sudden breakthrough in converting the endless sun energy by photo synthesis to energy, what the plants do, humanity’s survival depends on hydrocarbons for many more years to come.

Dear Mr. Turk, Defender of Huma Rights – you must know this, in the high position you are honored to hold, don’t you?

Where is your conscience, Mr. Turk, when you ring the alarm bell on innocent, already deprived people with famine, with a rapid increase of famine, and consequently with a rapid increase of death resulting from famine, when YOU know that the only man-made climate change is the one nobody talks about, the one emanating from the man-made ENMOD technologies.

The science of ENMOD, including HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) is being weaponized, has been gradually weaponized for years. The science is known since the 1940’s and has been perfected to sophistication since then. It can even trigger earthquakes – has done so already on several occasions – killing thousands of people, leaving the masses under the impression that they became victims of a “natural event”.

ENMOD is weaponizing the climate.

The technologies of environmental modification can be and are applied clandestinely, most people have no clue what happens, when for example western summers are hot and dry like never before, when forests burn – put aflame by paid arsonists – and pollute the air for weeks and over thousands of square kilometers, when sudden, mighty thunderstorms bring flash-floods to overheated and dried out soil to slam down the final stroke to food crop destruction.

The media tells them: Claim it on “climate change” and help reduce your carbon foot print, do not eat meat, do not drive cars, do not fly, stay home, adapt to a modern lockdown. The new 15-minute cities are ideal for you, the commons.

Have you noticed how commercial flying is gradually becoming unaffordable for the common people, while of course, the rich and famous, the all-commanding elite couldn’t care less and keep using all the more their private jets to roam around the globe. Their carbon footprint is immaterial.

They laugh at the commons whose brains, and especially pineal glands, have been dulled by 5G ultra-microwaves, chemtrail-chemicals, water disinfectants – and more – so that the majority still falls for their governments lies that they better follow the rules, the “rules-based order” that replaced constitutional laws, or else.

Has anybody noticed? Nations’ constitutional laws are being ignored. No judge in the world would uphold them against the elite-led order.

Mr. Turk, in your recent Human Rights advocacy speech in Geneva, you did not address the latest craziness and ultimate crime on humanity, the Washington and EU idea to block out the sunlight to cool down the earth. For the sake of saving humanity from “climate change”.

See this and this.

Scientists have warned of devastating effects of climate “geoengineering”. Yet, the Human Rights Council has not brought it up. It is an unspeakable crime on Human Rights – as such weather and climate manipulation would abridge every Human Right.

Can you imagine what that would mean? Of course, instead of having a cooling effect to preserve the earth’s temperature within the 2015 Paris Accord – an absurdity in the first place — it would have a disastrous killer effect. Every life form needs the sun and dies without it.

Blocking out the sunlight would be the ultimate killing machine to reach the Number One SDG drastically reduce the world population. You missed that one, Mr. Human Rights.

How can you sleep at night, Mr. Turk, scaring already desperately poor and undernourished people with more famine, because they and their governments do not follow the 2015 Paris climate rules, so they may face death?

Maybe your pineal gland, Mr. Turk, has also been killed and you have no longer any feelings for Human Rights, reason enough for having been placed into the position of the Human Rights czar.

The UN Human Rights Council’s 53rd session ends on July 14. Thus, there are still a couple of days left to right your wrongs, Mr. Turk and your HR Council colleagues.

If not, We, the People, will do everything in our peaceful and spiritual minds to stop this climate crime, including divulging the real agenda behind the 17 SDGs and behind the illegal UN Agenda 2030, the WEF’s Great Reset. We will be a critical mass to bring back decency and harmony to human life.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world.

13 July 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Countercurrents Collective

Moscow and Beijing should “lead the correct direction of global governance reform,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi underlined that the development of the bilateral ties between China and Russia has become “a strategic choice made by both countries based on their own national and people’s fundamental interests.”

Xi added that the importance of developing ties within such multinational groups as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS.

The Chinese President was hosting Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, on Monday.

Valentina Matvienko was visiting Beijing for talks.

The high-profile negotiations revolved around strengthening ties between the two nations, as well as their joint multinational projects.

“China is ready to continue to work with Russia to develop a new era of comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership that is mutually supportive, deeply integrated, pioneering and innovative, and mutually beneficial to help rejuvenate the two countries and promote a prosperous, stable, fair and just world,” Xi said during the meeting, which involved multiple senior officials from the two countries.

During the meeting, Matvienko relayed a “spoken message” from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Xi.

She said Russia-China ties have in recent years reached their highest-ever point and they will continue to improve even further. “This is the key role of the leaders of the two states. Such cooperation is in the best interests of our countries,” she said.

Speaking to reporters after the talks, Matvienko stated that Moscow can always rely on “a firm and reliable friendly shoulder in China,” hailing the country as a “very responsible serious state.”

“The main thing that I learned from all the meetings and conversations is that China will consistently and persistently continue cooperation with Russia, preserving the friendship that exists between our countries and peoples,” she said.

The Russian delegation, led by Matvienko, is set to remain in China until Wednesday.

West Pushes Neocolonial Agenda On World Stage, Says Lavrov

The U.S. and its allies are attempting to cling onto world hegemony against the tide of multipolar international order, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

“We do not define the currents phase of international relations as a new Cold War,” Lavrov told the Indonesian outlet Kompas.

“The issue at hand is about something different, namely, the formation of a multipolar international order. This is an objective process. Everyone can see that new globally meaningful decision-making centers are growing stronger in Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.”

These countries and their associations are seeing success because they promote “values such as national interests, independence, sovereignty, cultural and civilizational identity and international cooperation,” in line with the global development trends, Lavrov explained.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led “collective West” is trying to slow or reverse this process, the Russian diplomat said.

He said: “Their goal is not to strengthen global security or engage in joint development, but to maintain their hegemony in international affairs and to keep pursuing their neocolonial agenda, or in simpler terms, to continue to address their own problems at the expense of others, as they are accustomed to doing.”

Lavrov pointed to economic sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia in response to its military operation in Ukraine, as well as “overall selfish foreign policy,” which he said had undermined global food and energy security and made life difficult for developing countries.

The Ukraine conflict will continue “until the West gives up its plan to preserve its domination and overcome its obsessive desire to inflict on Russia a strategic defeat at the hands of its Kiev puppets,” Lavrov added, noting that there are no signs of that happening at this time.

Instead, he said, “the Americans and their vassals continue feverishly pumping Ukraine full of arms and pushing Vladimir Zelensky to continue hostilities,”

Lavrov said it is telling that the West is ignoring the initiatives of the developing nations, for instance, the proposals by Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

“During his visit to Moscow on June 30, 2022, he spoke about the need for ceasefire, humanitarian assistance and food security and expressed willingness to ‘develop communication’ between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine,” the minister said. On June 3 of this year, Defence Minister of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto also spoke about settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. But Kiev instantly rejected his idea by saying that it needed no mediators right now.”

Lavrov said the so-called “peace formula” suggested by Zelensky is a symptom of the aggressive mood of Kiev and its external patrons.

“They are trying to push it through as the only possible option for settlement. In effect, it consists of a package of ultimatums for Russia: a demand to stage a trial of its military-political leadership and take off its material assets in the form of reparations. To legitimize these demands that have nothing to do with seeking a real settlement, they are trying to convene some ‘peace summit’ in the near future, to which they are inviting developing nations. I am sure the Indonesians understand perfectly well the harmful motive behind these plans and will not yield to the false rhetoric of those that stand for fighting to the last Ukrainian,” he said.

NATO’s Military Aid To Ukraine Brings World War Three Closer, Says Medvedev

A Reuters report said on July 12, 2023:

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, said late on Tuesday that the increase in military assistance to Ukraine by the NATO alliance brings World War Three closer.

Commenting on the first day of the summit of the U.S.-led alliance in Lithuania, where a number of countries pledged more weaponry and financial support, Medvedev said the aid would not deter Russia from achieving its goals in Ukraine.

“The completely crazy West could not come up with anything else … In fact, it is a dead end. World War Three is getting closer,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Diplomats say Medvedev’s comments give an indication of thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite.

He also advocated on Tuesday for using the “inhuman weapon” that is cluster munitions after what he said were reports of Ukraine already using it.

The U.S. announced it would supply Kyiv with cluster munitions that typically release large numbers of small bomblets over a wide area and are banned by many countries.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow would be forced to use “similar” weapons if the U.S. supplied cluster bombs to Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine have previously accused each other of already using cluster munitions in the 500-day war.

Other media reports said:

Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine will continue and its goals will remain unchanged, including Kiev’s rejection of NATO membership, said Medvedev.

Commenting on the early results of the NATO summit in Vilnius, the Russian security official emphasized that NATO made the decision to eventually admit Ukraine, albeit “nobody knows when and on what conditions” and to boost its military assistance to Ukraine.

“What does it mean for us? It is crystal clear. The special military operation will continue with its goals unchanged. One of them is the rejection of NATO membership by the Kiev-based neo-Nazi group,” he said.

“We insisted on that from the very outset, but it is impossible, and, therefore, this group has to be eliminated. This is possible and necessary,” Medvedev wrote.

US, Europeans Depleted Their Weapons Stockpile Fighting Russia In Ukraine

U.S. President Joe Biden has taken flak over an explanation justifying the deployment of cluster munitions to Ukraine in which he admitted both Kiev and Washington are running out of ordinary 155-millimeter howitzer shells.

“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden said in a televised Friday interview, shortly after Washington’s announcement on the expedited delivery of M864 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) cluster bombs to Ukraine.

“And so, what I finally did, took the recommendation of the Defense Department, to not permanently, but to allow for, in this transition period, where we have more 155 weapons, these shells for Ukrainians, to provide them with something that has a very low dud rate,” Biden said.

The president’s comments were echoed by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who said in a Sunday chat show that the U.S. was running low on howitzer rounds.

The Ukrainians “are using artillery at a very accelerated rate, many thousands of rounds per day. This is literally a gun fight all along – from the Donbass all the way down towards Zaporozhye and Kherson. And so they’re running out of inventory,” Kirby said.

“We are trying to ramp up our production of the kind of artillery shells that they’re using most. But that production rate is still not where we want it to be. So we’re going to send these additional artillery shells that have cluster bomblets in them to help bridge the gap as we ramp up production of the normal 155 artillery shells,” the spokesman added.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl made a similar point on Friday, telling reporters Washington was looking to “bridge” a gap that exists between Ukrainian artillery round consumption and US and European production using cluster rounds.

“Vladimir Putin has a theory of victory, okay? His theory of victory is that he will outlast everybody. He will outlast the Ukrainians, he will outlast the United States, he will outlast the Europeans,” a flustered Kahl said. “That’s why President Biden has been clear that we are going to be with Ukraine as long as it takes and why we are signaling that we will continue to provide Ukraine with the capabilities that will keep them in the fight.”

Dedollarization Progress In Russia-China Trade

Media reports said:

Russia-China trade and economic cooperation is expanding, with over 80% of settlements between the two nations currently made in rubles and yuan, President Vladimir Putin has revealed.

The Russian leader was addressing a virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Tuesday via videolink from Moscow. The 23rd SCO summit is being chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to Putin, the volume of trade between Russia and fellow SCO member states reached a record $263 billion in 2022. The figure was up 35% in the first four months of this year, he noted. The share of the ruble in Russia’s settlements with the SCO countries exceeded 40%, Putin said.

Trade between Russia and China has continued to accelerate after hitting a historic high of $190.3 billion in annual terms in 2022. Exports and imports have surged at double-digit pace since the beginning of the year. According to customs data, bilateral trade soared to $93.8 billion in January-May, marking a 40.7% increase compared with a year ago. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov recently said that bilateral trade is on track to surpass the target of $200 billion a year earlier than anticipated.

Economic ties have been bolstered by the mutual decision to conduct the majority of transactions in national currencies instead of the US dollar.

Palestine Updates 646

Ranjan Solomon

Jenin attacks rank as collective punishment

Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations have criticized punitive measures taken by the Israeli government against Palestinians as fears grow of escalation after the deadliest unrest for years in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the arrests a gross violation of international law and the Geneva Convention, adding that the collective punishment was an extension of the occupation policy aimed at removing the Palestinian presence from Jerusalem. Various groups said the Israeli action amounted to collective punishment and is illegal under international law. Shawan Jabarin, director of Al-Haq Palestinian Human Rights organization, told Arab News: “These collective punishments are war crimes that the Israeli government takes against the Palestinians, as it punishes people who have nothing to do with those who carry out attacks against the Israeli occupiers. The Israeli government is fully responsible for the deterioration of conditions and massacres perpetrated by Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories. The decision of the Israeli Cabinet to distribute more weapons to settlers in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, and to call on the occupation police to take up arms, constituted a green light for Jewish terrorist organizations – which take settlements and outposts as safe havens under the protection of the occupation army – to commit more crimes. Israeli HaMoked human rights organization, said that members of Israel’s Cabinet were threatening a range of measures, all of which constituted collective punishment against innocent people.

Meanwhile Workers World made a shocking compelling report on the insidious role of Human Rights Watch. The U.S. not only had weapons to ship and diplomatic support to provide, but also well-financed organizations that could speak hypocritically in the name of human rights. In every global crisis, these organizations will step forward to issue reports of political assistance to support U.S. imperialist aims. In 2002, international bodies and United Nations bodies resoundingly called for a war crimes investigation of the Zionist massacre in Jenin. There was a world outcry. The U.S. government used Human Rights Watch (HRW), a notorious NGO funded by the U.S. Congress through the National Endowment for Democracy, to divert and railroad the call for an international inquiry.The Israeli military conveniently lifted the total lockdown of Jenin’s desperate civilian population to give HRW investigators a special opportunity to gain entrance into the barricaded Jenin refugee camp. In the confusion of the continuing military lockdown and bulldozers plowing up roads, electric lines and plumbing. Workers World reports how HRW opened spaces to allow them to pass Israeli checkpoints and patrols along with the HRW delegation. It became obvious to Workers World that their report and photos they provided were sharply different from the sanitized report from HRW. Bertrand Russell once posed this pertinent question: “How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?”(Bertrand Russell)

13 July 2023

“The attack on Jenin may have now ended, but there is no bigger resolution in sight – and no sign that the continual rounds of Palestinian displacement will end any time soon,” writes Dr Anne Irfan (UCL Arts and Sciences) in The Conversation examining Palestine-Israel.

The Israeli army’s recent attack on Jenin refugee camp resulted in 13 deaths (12 Palestinians, including four children, and one Israeli soldier killed by suspected friendly fire). An additional 143 Palestinians were injured, with 20 in critical condition, and up to 4,000 displaced.

While this mass displacement has received less media attention than other aspects of the Israeli operation, it is central to understanding the region’s politics.

Forced migration has always been core to the dynamics of modern Palestine and Israel. Most Palestinians are refugees, and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is organised around control of movement.

While often framed as a fight over religion and ideology, this is ultimately a struggle around demographics, displacement and mobility.

Much of the social media rhetoric on Jenin this week has asked why there is a refugee camp in the West Bank. It’s a question that reflects widespread historical ignorance both in Israel and across the west. In fact, there are 19 refugee camps in the West Bank, and eight in the Gaza Strip. More than 2 million Palestinians across the two territories are registered by the United Nations (UN) as refugees – and their original dispossession goes to the heart of the violence today.

When the state of Israel was established in 1948, it took over 78% of Palestine (much more than the 55% that the UN had originally allocated to the nascent Jewish state). Around three-quarters of the Palestinian population – 750,000 people – became refugees, expelled directly by Zionist militias or fleeing to escape massacres and other violence.

These events are known by Palestinians as the Nakba (“the catastrophe”), and are commemorated annually by refugee communities across the Middle East.

In the immediate aftermath of the Nakba, the refugees sought shelter in the neighbouring Arab states and the two areas of Palestine that did not become part of Israel: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Camps were built to house those with nowhere else to go. Jenin was one such camp, predominantly sheltering refugees from Haifa and Nazareth.

At the end of 1948, the UN passed Resolution 194, calling for the refugees to be allowed to return to their homes at the earliest opportunity. Successive Israeli governments consistently opposed this, and with no resolution, the refugees have remained in exile and in limbo.

Fast forward to 2023 and Jenin has now sheltered more than three generations of refugees. It is home to more than 14,000 people, surviving on less than half a square kilometre of land. When up to 4,000 Palestinians were displaced from the camp this week, they became refugees twice over. This is not the first time this has happened – Israel’s previous attack on Jenin in 2002 also displaced 4,000 people, more than a quarter of the camp’s population at the time.

The displacement of Palestinians did not end in 1948 but has continued for 75 years. In 1967, the Israeli army occupied the two parts of Palestine not subsumed in 1948: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (known thereafter as the Occupied Palestinian Territories or OPT). As a result, nearly 400,000 Palestinians became refugees, more than half for the second time. Jordan established six new refugee camps to house them.

The Israeli occupation places millions of civilians under martial law. Displacement and immobility are core features of the regime. The construction of illegal Israeli settlements often entails both, uprooting existing Palestinian communities and curtailing their freedom of movement by seizing land across the territory.

In addition to land grab, other Israeli measures that cause continual Palestinian displacement include forcible evictions, house demolitions, denial of residency rights, and discriminatory planning and zoning. This means that Palestinians must live with the constant threat of displacement hanging over them, and no protection of their civil rights as a population under occupation.

In all cases, Palestinians across the occupied territories struggle to negotiate their rights without the claims of citizenship. Recent high-profile cases of forcible displacement include Israeli eviction orders against Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah to make room for Israeli settlers. In the southern West Bank, Palestinian communities in Masafer Yaffa are facing expulsion as Israel appropriates the land for military training.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza face displacement of a different kind. Although Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Palestinians there have continued to lose their homes due to ongoing waves of violence. Some 72,000 were displaced during the 2021 air attack on Gaza, as 2,200 homes were destroyed and another 37,000 damaged.

As around 70% of the Gaza population are refugees, this figure is a stark reminder of the continual nature of Palestinian forced migration. Many Palestinians now speak of “ongoing Nakba” to reflect this reality.

All this is possible because the Palestinians’ statelessness deprives them of basic rights. While discussions about the peace process is often framed in terms of conflict resolution and security, for many Palestinians the real priority is ending their dispersal and displacement.

The attack on Jenin may have now ended, but there is no bigger resolution in sight – and no sign that the continual rounds of Palestinian displacement will end any time soon.

7 July 2023

Source: ucl.ac.uk