Press-Freedom in The West Is a Lie.

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

The U.S. and its allies have already lost their global war to control the world. Even resorting to nuclear weapons can’t change that; and these nations’ press have been keeping all of these historic developments secret from their respective publics, in order for their publics not to overthrow and replace them with actual democracies after all the lies they’ve been told for decades, by the Government and its stenographic ‘news’-media.

The immediate exemplars demonstrating that the U.S. empire — which started on 25 July 1945, and expanded by taking into NATO Finland and other countries (turning them into vassal-nations in the U.S. empire), as well as by recently creating a NATO for the Pacific in the form of AUKUS — are America’s now clearly impending defeat in the Middle East, and also its defeat in Ukraine, and also in China’s province of Taiwan, as will here be summarized with documentation in the links, to the evidences, which evidences disprove the U.S.-and-allied media-lies:

As I pointed out on October 17th under the headline “U.S.-Israel Trapped Now By Jordan & Egypt Backing Hamas”, the clear statements by Israel’s crucial bordering nations of Egypt and Jordan, saying that under no circumstances will they accept what the U.S. and Israel was planning, which was the ethnic cleansing of Gazans out of Gaza, meant that the entire U.S. program for the Middle East, of ‘peace between Israel and the Arab nations’ (Trump’s “Abraham Accords”, which Biden continued and backed) has now turned to dust; and so, unless the United States will now join the rest of the world in condemning Israel’s apartheid policy toward the Palestinians, America will join Israel as being international pariah-nations.

Just the day before, the internationally respected geostrategic analyst and retired Indian diplomat M.K. Badrakumar, had headlined “US faces defeat in geopolitical war in Gaza”, and he analogized these events to the termination of the Ottoman Empire (1300-1922), which, being allied with Germany in World War I, ended its empire (the Turkish empire) in 1922, at the same time that it perpetrated genocides while trying to hold onto its empire. Here is how Wikipedia refers to that:

During this time, the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.[42] The Empire’s defeat and the occupation of part of its territory by the Allied Powers in the aftermath of World War I resulted in its partitioning and the loss of its southern territories, which were divided between the United Kingdom and France. The successful Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy.[43]

On October 29th, I headlined “How Trump & Biden Created This War in the Middle East, And Why Hamas Attacked Israel on October 7th” and explained that U.S.-Saudi agreement was to be the crowning achievement of Donald Trump’s “Abraham Accords” agreements (basically like that with Saudi Arabia which was being negotiated prior to October 7th between Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud), between all of the major Sunni Muslim Arab countries and Israel. (Here, for example, is the one that Netanyahu and Trump had signed with UAE’s Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan on 15 September 2020.) And The Saudi version of it was to include explicitly a commitment by the U.S. Government to put down any revolution that might occur in that country to overthrow the Saud family who lead that country. The U.S. Government would guarantee the Saud family that they won’t be overthrown — will always own that country (as they now do). The deal would also include a renewed commitment by that family to purchase $350 billion of U.S.-made weapons over a ten-year period (the largest arms-deal in history — that deal had actually been negotiated by Trump in 2018).

The Abraham Accords grant recognition to Israel’s Government without requiring it to achieve any settlement with the Palestinians. They are agreements between those Sunni Arab Governments granting this official recognition to Israel and thereby leaving ONLY the Shiite Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, and Syria — still actively supporting rights for Palestinians.

President Biden 100% backs Trump’s Abraham Accords.

The reason why Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th was to prevent the Sauds from signing, because, if they did, then the entire Palestinian cause would, in effect, have no defenders outside Palestine itself. Palestinians would be abandoned to whatever Israel wants to do to them. The independent Middle-Eastern journalist Steven Sahiounie headlined on October 29th, “The US has betrayed Egypt again”, and explained that (Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-) “Sisi knows there is an Israeli plan, condoned and supported by Biden, to remove all Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt, where they will be supported by humanitarian aid, but can never repopulate Gaza again. They will be permanently homeless and stateless refugees.” And, as Sahiounie also explained, “the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine, met on October 21” and agreed to stand firm against that plan by Netanyahu and Biden. The only other options remaining for Israel are either to exterminate all the Gazans or else to instead force all of them southward into Israel’s Negev desert to receive U.N. aid and die there. However, if that happens, then the entire non-Western world will loathe The West (America’s ‘democracy’ and its empire). And it would be the best recruiting-tool that jihadists have ever had.

Biden had hoped to achieve a signed agreement — Abraham Accords — with the Sauds, as being a fait accompli, so as to leave the Palestinians in the ditch, to their Israeli fate, and so as to get the Sauds to recommit to fulfilling their promise, which they had made to Trump, to spend the full $350 billion on purchases of U.S. armaments within the specified 2018-2028 time-frame.

So: it was do-or-die for Palestinian rights, and Hamas therefore attacked on October 7th. It was done in order to prevent the Sauds from signing Abraham Accords. And this war in the Middle East actually goes directly back to the evil founding of Israel, by the Jews there, ethnically cleansing away the majority-population, Palestinaians, starting in 1948.

How much of this has been reported in such ‘news’-media as the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Le Monde, etc.? How can the populations in such countries vote in their best national interests without knowing these solidly established facts?

The other major world international crises are concerning America’s coup which started in February 2014 the war in Ukraine, and America’s verbally saying that it sticks by its 1972 official statement that Taiwan is a part of China but at the same time sending weaponry to Taiwan for Taiwan to break away from China.

And all three of these international crises are U.S.-generated and falsely reported in the empire’s press. Would the publics throughout the U.S. empire continue to support their Governments’ foreign policies if they knew these solidly established historical facts instead of their Government’s lies that its press had stenographically reported to them for decades as ‘the news’?

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

Oil prices headed to ‘uncharted waters’ – World Bank

The organization warned millions could go hungry if hostilities between Israel and Hamas continue to intensify

Continued escalation of Israel’s war with Hamas could push oil prices into “uncharted waters,” the World Bank warned in its Commodity Markets Outlook on Monday. 

The World Bank cautioned that while the war’s effect on oil prices had been limited thus far, the future “would darken quickly if the conflict were to escalate.” The organization’s report outlined three potential futures based on the level of disruption escalating hostilities might cause in global oil supply.

A “small disruption,” removing 500,000 to 2 million barrels of oil from circulation per day, would be mostly absorbed by the market, the bank predicted. Prices would inch up from the current $90 per barrel to between $93 and $102, canceling out the $9 drop it had previously predicted by next year in the face of slowed economic growth.

Read more

WTO warns global economy could lose 5% of GDP

A “medium disruption,” the equivalent of the US’ 2003 war in Iraq, could see prices increase between 21% and 35%, with 3 to 5 million barrels per day taken out of supply – leaving oil priced between $109 and $121 per barrel, the report stated.

A “large disruption,” which the bank likened to the Arab oil embargo of 1973, with 6 to 8 million barrels eliminated from supply per day, could see prices surge between 56% and 75%. This would drive the cost per barrel up to between $140 and $157.

Higher oil prices would translate to spiking food prices, exacerbating current food insecurity and causing millions to go hungry, World Bank deputy chief economist Ayhan Kose explained. “If a severe oil price shock materializes, it would push up food price inflation that has already been elevated in many developing countries” as a result of the Ukraine conflict, he said.

Nearly a tenth of Earth’s population – over 700 million people – were undernourished by the end of 2022 due to disruptions in commodity markets caused by the conflict, he added.

World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill urged policy-makers to “be vigilant,” warning that “the global economy would face a dual energy shock for the first time in decades – not just from the war in Ukraine,” which he called “the biggest shock to commodity markets since the 1970s,” but from the Middle East as well if the war in Gaza continues to escalate. 

While oil prices have increased 6% since Hamas’ attack on Israel earlier this month, agricultural commodities and precious metals have “barely budged,” the World Bank reported.

Israel expanded its ground assault on Gaza on Monday, with tanks reportedly advancing on Gaza City from multiple directions. Over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced under the most intense bombing of Gaza in Israel’s history.

Biden orders that AI not be allowed to become racist

The US president has issued an edict on safeguards for artificial intelligence, including standards for “equity and civil rights”

US President Joe Biden has decreed that safeguards be put in place to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) technology from perpetuating racial discrimination in housing, the criminal justice system and other aspects of American life.

Provisions for “advancing equity and civil rights” were among the guidelines that Biden included in an executive order issued on Monday to set standards for AI safety and security. He called for providing “clear guidance” to landlords, federal contractors and public benefits programs to prevent AI algorithms from being used to “exacerbate discrimination.”

The order also includes guidance for developing “best practices” on the use of AI in law enforcement and the criminal court system, as well as a directive for federal prosecutors and civil rights offices to crack down on “algorithmic discrimination.” The Biden administration previously issued a guide for preventing automated systems from infringing civil rights – called the “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” – and directed federal agencies to combat discrimination in automation technology.

Read more

Biden calls black senior adviser Cedric Richmond a ‘boy’ during FEMA briefing

“Irresponsible use of AI can lead to and deepen discrimination, bias and other abuses in justice, health care and housing,” the White House said in a statement on Monday’s executive order.

Biden has made race a centerpiece of his administration since taking office in January 2021. He has boasted the most “inclusive” administration in US history and has issued multiple executive orders on equity and inclusion. In fact, Biden’s Domestic Policy Council is charged with embedding “equity principles” in everything the federal government does. For instance, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg launched a $1 billion program last year to combat racist roadways.

Monday’s executive order includes a wide range of new AI safeguards, such as a requirement that companies developing systems that pose a risk to national security notify the federal government and share the results of their safety tests. Biden also called for expanding grants for AI research and conducting a study on how the government can help mitigate job losses resulting from the technology.


READ MORE: China increasingly outpacing US in AI patents – Bloomberg

The administration has already consulted with dozens of allies on developing international guidelines to “govern the development and use of AI,” the White House said. Those efforts will accelerate under Biden’s executive order.

 

 

German police arrest AfD lawmaker amid ‘Nazi symbols’ probe

MP Daniel Halemba is accused of incitement and use of the swastika

German police have arrested Daniel Halemba, a newly elected Bavarian lawmaker with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The politician was caught in the Stuttgart area early Monday, prosecutors said.

The 22-year-old MP, the youngest politician ever elected to the Bavarian parliament, is suspected of incitement and use of banned symbols of “unconstitutional organizations,” namely, the Nazi swastika. The investigation into Halemba is linked to the Teutonia Prague student fraternity, which was raided by the authorities in Wurzburg, Bavaria last month.

The group is suspected of using Nazi-associated memorabilia and symbols, while neighbors repeatedly complained that fraternity members were shouting “Sieg Heil” during their assemblies. During the raid, forbidden symbols were recovered from the fraternity’s compound, according to the authorities.

Apart from Halemba, who has openly admitted to being a member of the fraternity and was at the compound during the raid, German law enforcement has identified four other suspects. All of them are accused of incitement and possession of Nazi memorabilia.

Read more

‘We have arrived’ – Germany’s far-right AfD

The MP, however, has denied the allegations, telling the Suddeutsche Zeitung after the raid that no “incriminating material” had been found. Katrin Ebner-Steiner, the AfD’s parliamentary leader in Bavaria, condemned the MP’s arrest, calling it “an indictment” of democracy.

Halemba’s lawyer, Dubravko Mandic, dismissed the allegations as well, saying there is “no truth” to them, while signaling that the arrest of his client will be challenged. “He is an elected member of parliament and, in my opinion, he has a claim against the government and the ministry of justice that they no longer execute the arrest warrant,” Mandic told the German Press Agency.

Halemba’s arrest comes as he was set to begin his tenure in the Bavarian parliament. The politician is among 32 MPs elected in the Bavarian state elections earlier this month from the AfD, making it the largest opposition party in the state.