“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Another opportunity to practice the skills you have been acquiring to notice the methods being applied to shape opinions and emotions about an event. Alexei Navalny has died from a blood clot while serving his sentence in a Russian penal colony.

The anti-vaxer site I check occasionally infers the clot was an adverse reaction to the two COVID vaccine he received in Germany. Most of the MSM (main street media) stories lay the blame on Putin. No details, just blame.

Reuters' article, Navalny's death leaves despair and apathy in Moscow, and accompanying photos implying mass mourning in Russia is a piece of propaganda art. The bio of the author shows a depth of experience.

Guy Faulconbridge
Thomson Reuters

As Moscow bureau chief, Guy runs coverage of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Before Moscow, Guy ran Brexit coverage as London bureau chief (2012-2022). On the night of Brexit, his team delivered one of Reuters historic wins - reporting news of Brexit first to the world and the financial markets. Guy graduated from the London School of Economics and started his career as an intern at Bloomberg. He has spent over 14 years covering the former Soviet Union. He speaks fluent Russian.

The following is a collection of articles discussing methods and results of some of the novel Financial Controls US uses on other countries.

Afghan-like retreat debacle looms in Pacific islands Asia Times Feb 13, 2024

American control of the Central Pacific depends on treaties – known as Compacts of Free Association (COFA) – with three nations: Palau, Federated States of Micronesia and Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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The COFAs give the United States the legal authority to operate freely and to keep other nations’ militaries out. In other words, military access and control.

As part of the agreements, the three nations receive American financial and other support including their citizens’ right to reside and work in America. And one should never forget that COFA state citizens serve in the US military at higher per-capita rates than residents of almost all US states.
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The president of each COFA nation is said to have a blank check from China on the desk. The checks haven’t been cashed – such is their deep attachment to the United States. But their patience is not unlimited,

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Number of Western firms that left Russia revealed Russia Times Feb 14, 2024

Only about 20% of the large companies from Europe and 16% from the US have left Russia in light of Western sanctions pressure, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov has revealed.

Many enterprises that remained in Russia continue to increase investment, according to Manturov, who also serves as the trade and industry minister.

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Thousands of German luxury cars seized in US Feb 17, 2024

Several thousand Audis and around 1,000 Porsches, as well as several hundred Bentleys, are being impounded in US ports after the authorities found a component in the vehicles that was allegedly made through forced labor in western China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

A selection of articles on infectious agents and medical testing.

The last case of bubonic plague locally was 12 years ago. Happened again, a cat becomes infected by a rodent and passes it on to a person.

Best protection to infectious diseases is to be in the best of health possible, know and practice methods to prevent infections, know signs and symptoms and know where to get help and information.

Rare Human Case of Bubonic Plague in Oregon Confirmed by Authorities
Science Alert Feb 12, 2024

The bubonic plague might sound like an affliction of the past, but the bacterium behind the disease is still out there, causing thousands of human infections worldwide, year after year, although cases in the US are relatively rare.

The state of Oregon just confirmed its first case in eight years, and officials say it probably came from a domestic cat, which also showed symptoms.
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Y. pestis usually infects small mammals and fleas, and depending on how it spreads to humans, either by bites, contaminated fluids, or droplets in the air, it can cause bubonic plague or a blood- or lung-based plague.

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West’s Big Pharma Conducted Drug Testing on Mariupol's Psychiatric Patients for Years Sputnik International February 12, 2024

During the restoration of hospital No. 7 in Mariupol, a construction team stumbled upon a collection of documents in the basement.

These findings of interest turned out to be records from a hospital psychiatric ward, dating from 2008 to 2016. Upon examination, these documents detailed a series of human experiments involving certain undisclosed drugs, which were solely identified by numbers.

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worth a full read

US Seeks Funds for New Bioweapons Projects From Clinton, Soros, Rockefeller Foundations: Russian MoD Sputnik International Jan 15, 2024

Russia's Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense (RCBD) Troops began extensive reporting on Pentagon funding for military-related biological research in Eastern Europe and around the world in early 2022, with much of their findings based on the tens of thousands of documents seized over the course of the special military operation in Ukraine.

The United States government is actively searching for new sources of funding for military biological research from leading American 'philanthropic' institutions, including the Clinton, Soros, Rockefeller and Biden Foundations, RCBD Troops chief Igor Kirillov has announced.

Washington's goals are multifold, Kirillov said, and include the study of the causative agents of "particularly dangerous infections in regions of the world that are strategically important for the United States," and achieving "superiority" in biomanufacturing, including by using biological espionage against potential geopolitical adversaries.

As before, the RCBD Troops chief said, US military-biological research abroad in 2023 was designed to take advantage of gaps in international legislation, allowing scientists to engage in highly risky research abroad which they would be prohibited from doing at home.
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Russia and China unite over US bioweapons threat Russia Times Feb 1, 2024

The Russian and Chinese governments have held an inter-agency meeting in Beijing to share their assessments of biological security concerns, and address the threats posed by bioweapons – particularly those allegedly being developed by the US military.

Moscow and Beijing agreed to work together in seeking to strengthen the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC), a treaty signed by 109 nations in 1972 to block the development of these unconventional armaments, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday in a statement.
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Russia, China, and 14 other nations issued a joint statement in December calling for strengthening the UN’s policing of biological and chemical weapons.
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The US and its NATO allies vetoed a UN resolution last year calling for an investigation of Washington’s biolabs in Ukraine. Some “unfinished” bioweapons projects were moved to Africa amid the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said in November.

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Big Pharma's Tested 'Secret Bioweapon Program to Target Slavic DNA’ in Mariupol – Expert Sputnik International February 13, 2024

Russia’s release of documents exposing major pharmaceutical companies in America and beyond "confirms not only the existence of a secret bioweapon program targeting Slavic-DNA, but explains why the West in general has become so pathologically obsessed with trying to keep Ukraine in the NATO-EU-US orbit of influence," Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer and US state department counterterrorism analyst, told Sputnik.
"The large network of pharmaceutical and medical research and development companies involved show a constellation of connecting points that lead back into the heart of the City of London, the United States, and their secret intelligence proxies, mercenaries, and slaves willing to sell out their own country, Ukraine, for ‘30 pieces of silver,’ with the face of America on the coin," Bennett pointed out.

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Biological Warfare in Action by Larry Romanoff
Chapter 9 – Italy’s Olive Trees

On February 27, 2015, the London Telegraph ran an article by Nick Squires [1] detailing the danger to olive trees in Italy and potentially all of Europe, caused by a deadly bacterium brought to Italy from the US, and that was destroying centuries-old olive trees. He wrote that the disease was first detected in Italy in the fall of 2013 and had already affected almost a quarter of a million hectares of olive groves. Many trees that were hundreds of years old, and some 1,000 years old, would all have to be cut down to prevent further contamination. The cause appears to be a bacterium named Xylella fastidiosa, which attacks olive and citrus trees, and some grape vines, causing them to become desiccated and preventing the formation of fruit.

The BBC covered the story with comments that this disease could cost billions; [2] Bloomberg advised travelers to “see Italy’s olive trees while you can”; [3] and Scientific American is asking if Italy’s olive trees really need to be burned to the ground. [4]
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So why would ‘scientists’ import a pathogen from the US that apparently (and suddenly) is found attacking Italian trees, and why are Italian authorities refusing to do a genetic comparison of the Italian variety with the American one? And why are Italian authorities apparently determined to destroy millions of Italian olive trees without even performing such a basic investigation? Given the lack of evidence of the real cause of this agricultural disease and the proven existence of what Colorni called “effective alternative policies”, the government’s claims and actions appear both bizarre and suspicious. You cannot deny this is beginning to stink, because the facts as presented simply do not correlate and therefore much of the official story cannot possibly be true.

The Italian police appear to agree, and have apparently begun aggressively confiscating files and computer hard drives from the national Ministry of Agriculture and various other so-called ‘institutions’ involved in this fiasco, and regional authorities have placed a freeze on the cutting down of trees while their investigation continues. Oddly, bizarrely, and quite suspiciously, the Italian National Minister of Agriculture, the man who appears desperate to cut down all of Italy’s olive trees, has vowed to file court appeals against these delays.

Russia’s Fight Against Globalism (pt. 1/2) (39:53 min, starts at 30:39)

Axis of Resistance: from Donbass to Gaza The Cradle Feb 16, 2024

Just as the rich black soil of Novorossiya is where the “rules-based international order” came to die; the Gaza Strip in West Asia – an ancestral land, Palestine – may ultimately be the site where Zionism will perish. Both the rules-based order and Zionism, after all, are essential constructs of the western unipolar world and key to advancing its global economic and military interests.

Today’s incandescent geopolitical fault lines are already configured: the collective west versus Islam, the collective west versus Russia, and soon a substantial part of the west, even reluctantly, versus China.

Yet a serious counterpunch is at play.

Pepe Escobar: Life During Wartime – On the Road in Donbass Sputnik International February 13, 2024

Pepe Escobar embarked on a journey across Donbass to share his thoughts on the many first-hand encounters with the locals, who show unbreakable resilience.

Link to the livestream videos this week by Judge Napolitano channel ongoing discussions regarding current events Israel/Hamas/Gaza, expanded Middle East Conflict Zone and Ukraine/Russia conflict. The interviews are generally posted Monday through Friday.

What is on your mind today?