Naharnet Newsdesk (Editorial)
Naharnet/Agence France Presse

Hezbollah vowed on Wednesday to punish Israel for a deadly attack in which hundreds of paging devices used by the militant group's members exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the wave of explosions that killed nine people, including the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, and wounded around 2,800 others.

The attack came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attacks to include its fight against the Palestinian militant group's ally Hezbollah along the country's border with Lebanon.

💬 "We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression," the group said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Israel "will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression".

On Wednesday, the group vowed in another statement on Telegram it would continue its fight in support of Gaza while reiterating it would avenge Tuesday's blasts.

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Sasha Latypova
Due Diligence and Art

(Making bread, watercolor, 9x12 in)

Moderna cuts R&D budget by $1.1B, Charles River lays off 3% staff.

According to Endpoint News, Moderna is in financial trouble. They are not even “break-even”, i.e. not generating positive cash flow from operations! This is after Trump’s Operation Warp Speed showered $10B+ on them in a span of about 18 months. Where did all this money go? Swiss vaults? Secret underground bases in Antarctica where Bancel is planning to hide out for the duration of Armageddon? I don’t know, I am not well versed in these conspiracies.

💬 To kick off its annual R&D day in New York, Moderna said Thursday that it will slash its annual spending on research and development by $1.1 billion by 2027. The biotech will also stop developing five early-stage programs, place other drugs on the backburner and focus on a handful of late-stage mRNA medicines.

Simultaneously, Moderna overhauled its long-term financial projections, and it now forecasts the company’s break-even point in 2028 instead of 2026. The shake-up will not include major layoffs, Bancel told Endpoints News, and he envisions the company staying around its 6,000-employee headcount for the next three to five years.

But, you see, according to Bancel, this is because “it’s working!”, just like your beautiful mRNA shot is working as promised…

💬 “It’s a moment of evolution, in the sense the platform is working, which is the most important thing,” Bancel said. “We just want to be responsible and financially disciplined.”

Moderna’s stock price $MRNA has fallen over 80% over the past three years, erasing about $150 billion in market value from its all-time, pandemic highs. The Wall Street is not impressed:

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Erkin Oncan
Strategic Culture Foundation

The biggest promise of the Vilnius government to its people is war and destruction.

A leaflet titled “What to Do in the Event of a Crisis or War?” will be distributed to the public in Lithuania. This leaflet, which is set to be delivered to approximately one million households this fall, will inform Lithuanian citizens about what they should do in times of crisis.

Laurynas Kasčiūnas, a member of the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) and a representative of the Christian Democrats (TS-LKD), explained the purpose of the leaflet at a press conference:

Not only Lithuania, but other Northern European and Baltic countries are also preparing for the ‘anticipated war’ with Russia.

Recently, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics announced that a Russian drone had crashed into Latvian territory, calling on the alliance to discuss responses, including the ability to shoot down such drones. In other words, Rinkevics called on NATO to shoot down Russian drones.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The suspect is a Ukro-maniac who’d been radicalized by the Mainstream Media into traveling to Kiev, trying to join the “International Legion”, and even recruiting former Afghan soldiers for it.

The authorities detained a man on Sunday who attempted to assassinate presidential frontrunner Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida. He was caught with an AK-47, a scope, and a GoPro camera. It turns out that he’s also fairly well known, being a former construction worker-turned-mercenary by the name of Ryan Routh. The New York Times even reported on him in spring 2023, mentioning that he’d spent some time in Kiev and was actively recruiting Afghan soldiers who fled to Pakistan as refugees.

CNN confirmed that he posted on social media shortly after the special operation began that “I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE…Can I be the example We must win.” Routh also criticized Trump for wanting to “MASA…make Americans slaves again master”, among other rants against the former president. Quite clearly, he drank the Kool-Aid and was convinced that Trump was a ‘threat to democracy’ and likely also a ‘Russian agent’.

In many ways, his profile closely resembles that of the political extremist who was radicalized by the Mainstream Media into thinking similar falsehoods about Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, which drove him to try to kill the incumbent last spring in an assassination attempt that he only narrowly survived. Both were obsessed with Ukraine, but Routh’s connection to it wasn’t just as a bystander, but as a participant in NATO’s proxy war on Russia given his time in Kiev and recruitment of mercenaries for it.

He was also almost certainly a member of “NAFO” too, the global troll network that’s connected to the Ukrainian, American, and other Western governments as documented by investigative journalists Moss Robeson and Alex Rubinstein, among others. The latter’s colleague Max Blumenthal also shared some brief additional insight into Routh’s ties with Ukraine’s “International Legion”. Those mercenaries are backed by the US Government, thus linking him to them as well.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Rarely is everything as clear-cut as it seems...

Putin warned last week that letting Ukraine use Western long-range weapons to strike deep inside of Russia 💬 “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically. This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia.”

He preceded his words by reminding everyone that “the Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…(and) only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems.”

Foreign Minister Lavrov briefed foreign ambassadors about this on the same day, repeating the same points as his boss but also adding that 💬 “Our experts are confident that without such (Western) specialist involvement, it would be impossible (for Ukraine) to use these complex systems. These tasks can only be performed by professionals who have worked with these systems for a long time and know how to operate them. It would be impossible to train someone to use them in just a few weeks.”

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Stephen Karganovic
Strategic Culture Foundation

Durov’s recent statements which indicate that he is labouring under grave illusions about the nature of his predicament.

After being released on bail from a French prison, Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov made several statements which indicate that he is labouring under grave illusions about the nature of his predicament. He described the action of the French authorities, which resulted in his arrest and detention on French territory, as “surprising and misguided.” He then went on to question the legal premise of his detention and subsequent indictment, which is that he could be held “personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram.”

It is disappointing to see a thirty-nine years old sophisticated cosmopolitan adult, traumatised as he must be by his recent experiences, reasoning like a child. One should have expected a person of Durov’s wealth to secure competent legal assistance to help him understand the legal “facts of life” pertaining to his case.

There are two basic facts that the lawyer selected by Durov to represent him should have explained to his client. Incidentally, that lawyer is extremely well wired into the French establishment and the judicial system which is persecuting his bewildered protégé. It would not be uncharitable to say that his loyalties are dubious.

The first and most fundamental of these facts is the political nature of the case. Durov’s predicament cannot be properly understood apart from that reality. Recognition of that fact does not exclude entirely the effective use of legal arguments and remedies but it marginalises their practical impact. The second important fact that a conscientious legal professional already in the first interview would have made clear to his client is that in the real world in which Durov is facing grave criminal charges, indulging intuitive notions of justice, including the premise that a person cannot be held criminally liable for third-party acts, is a naïve and utterly misguided approach.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The US simply cannot accept that it lost the battle for hearts and minds across the Global South and even among a growing segment of the Western population itself.

The US’ sanctions against RT on the basis of it supposedly functioning as an undeclared intelligence agency “engaged in covert influence operations” are the continuation of its liberal-globalist elite’s efforts to revive the Russiagate conspiracy theory ahead of the November elections. Elements thereof earlier smeared Jill Stein as “a useful idiot for Russia” and then RT was accused of financing some top conservative influencers, who weren’t even aware of these alleged ties, all of which was explained here:

● 4 September: “The Democrats’ Attacks Against Jill Stein Show How Desperate They’re Getting”
● 5 September: “The Latest Russiagate Scandal Aims To Discredit Alt-Media & Trump”
● 7 September: “Russia’s Tenet Media Operation Was A Total Flop If The Reports Are True”

The intent was to discredit third-party candidates, Alt-Media, Trump, and top conservative influencers in the hopes of manipulating more voters into casting their ballots for Kamala. It remains to be seen whether this will succeed, but the complementary goal being advanced by the latest move is to scapegoat RT for the US’ global soft power failures. RT has proudly informed their audience of “inconvenient truths” about US foreign policy, however, so there’s nothing conspiratorial about that.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

His proposal is well-intentioned but ill-advised for the reasons that’ll be explained.

The respected Russian intellectual Sergey Karaganov, who serves as the honorary chairman of Russia’s influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and is also an academic supervisor at the Higher School of Economics’ School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs, is once again talking about nukes. He made global headlines last year after he proposed a nuclear first strike against Europe, which was responded to here, and just gave an interview to Kommersant about updating Russia’s nuclear doctrine.

Although the preceding hyperlinked response supported this proposal at the time, upon further reflection, it’s clear that it won’t deter the West for the reasons that’ll now be explained. The current doctrine enumerates four scenarios in which nukes can be used, which include threats to the existence of the state and large-scale conventional aggression. Karaganov believes that they should be used “in the event of any encroachment on our territory and our citizens” in a nod to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk.

While he’s sure to have his share of supporters among the hawks at home and Russia’s most passionate supporters abroad, they’re all overlooking a few “inconvenient facts”. First, any encroachment of Russian territory can be framed as threatening the existence of the state if the Commander-in-Chief truly wants to use nukes in response, but the current one won’t resort to radical measures as explained here. Basically, Putin has worked hard to avoid World War III by miscalculation, and he won’t get careless now.

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Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

■ US Secretary of State Blinken & UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, will travel to Kyiv to inform Ukraine that restrictions on use of long-range missiles against Russian territory will be lifted.

■ Initially, this will mean that American-supplied ATACMS (Advanced Tactical Missile System) along with British-supplied "StormShadow" missiles, and French-supplied "SCALP" missiles, can now be used to attack deep inside pre-war Russia.

How much longer can any reasonable person expect Russia, to sit back and allow itself to be attacked with American, British, French, and German weaponry, fired by Ukraine?

In the real world, if persons "A" and "B" give a weapon to person "C," and person "C" goes out and uses that weapon to commit an act of violence...and gets arrested...they then ask Person "C" "Where did you get this weapon?" When person "C" tells them, the very NEXT people to get arrested are persons "A" and "B."

There is liability and culpability for what the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and NATO member countries, are doing. They are accessories before the fact.

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Daniele Ganser
Journal of 9/11 Studies

The “Strategy of Tension” in the Cold War Period *

[06/02/14] Historians today and in the coming years face a challenging task: they must write the history of the events of September 11, 2001. What they write will be taught in history classes. But what will they write? Will they write that Osama Bin Laden sent 19 Muslims to launch a surprise attack on the U.S.? Or will they write that the administration of President George W. Bush was responsible for the attack, either constructing it or deliberately permitting it in order to shock the U.S. population and to create a pretext for increasing military spending and attacking Afghanistan and Iraq?

Having examined much of the data related to the 9/11 events, I am convinced a new and thorough investigation is needed. But when I have questioned the official narrative of 9/11 in my native Switzerland I have encountered vigorous objections from people. Why would any government in the world, they have asked, attack its own population or, only slightly less criminal, deliberately allow a foreign group to carry out such an attack? While brutal dictatorships, such as the regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia, are known to have had little respect for the life and dignity of their citizens, surely a Western democracy, the thinking goes, would not engage in such an abuse of power. And if criminal elements within a Western democracy, in North America or in Europe, had engaged in such a crime, would not elected officials or the media find out and report on it? Is it imaginable that criminal persons within a government could commit terrorist operations against innocent citizens, who support the very same government with the taxes they pay every year? Would nobody notice? These are difficult questions, even for academics who specialize in the history of secret warfare. But in fact, there are historical examples of such operations being implemented by Western democracies.

In this essay, I will not deal directly with 9/11 but will look at what we can learn from history. I will report on some of the newest academic data about secret warfare during the Cold War. A secret military strategy that targets domestic populations with terrorism does indeed exist. It is called the “strategy of tension.” And it was implemented by Western democracies.

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Kevin Barrett
Kevin’s Newsletter for AFP

I recently returned to the USA after a year-long absence, having taken up residence in exotic Morocco last July. Unfortunately I had a tight connection at LAX, which became even tighter when US Customs and Border Protection singled me out for interrogation.

It seems that interesting stuff always pops up on government screens when they enter my name. How else would they know that I am a writer known for questioning the official story of 9/11? “So who did it?” the agent asked. “Israel,” I answered without hesitation.

A split second later, I was cursing myself for my impulsive honesty, brought on by sleeplessness and jet lag: “If that CPB agent is a Zionist, they’ll hold me for hours and I’ll never make my connection!”

Fortunately the agent took no offense and released me just in time to catch my flight. Apparently America isn’t a complete Zionist-occupied totalitarian hellhole yet.

But we’re getting there. A sign of the times was Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speech to Congress July 24. The good news is that 92 lawmakers boycotted the genocidal war criminal’s speech. The bad news is that the other 443 senators and representatives offered repeated standing ovations.

Why did more than 4/5ths of America’s lawmakers passionately salute the worst war criminal of the 21st century? Why the nauseatingly obsequious demonstration of loyalty to a genocidal foreign entity? It all comes down to what is euphemistically called the US-Israel “special relationship.”

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are in the midst of converging crises caused by the failed counteroffensive, the forcible conscription policy, and Zelensky’s Kursk blunder, which are leading to more desertions, defeats, and ultimately more desperation.

CNN carried out a rare act of journalistic service with their detailed report about how “Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion”. It candidly describes the numerous problems afflicting the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) at this pivotal moment in the conflict as they continue to occupy part of Kursk but are still losing ground in Donbass. Their story begins by introducing a battalion commander who lost most of the around 800 men under his control.

This figure couldn’t take it anymore and thus transferred to a cushy military administrative job in Kiev. He and the five others who CNN spoke to when researching their report informed them that “desertion and insubordination are becoming a widespread problem, especially among newly recruited soldiers.” In the words of one commander, “Not all mobilized soldiers are leaving their positions, but the majority are…They either leave their positions, refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army.”

The reader is then informed that these troops are forcibly conscripted, thus adding context to why they desert, but they also claimed that morale problems began to infect the armed forces’ ranks during the now-resolved impasse over more American aid to Ukraine. While that likely played a role, CNN conspicuously omits to mention last summer’s failed counteroffensive, which proved that Ukraine is unable to reconquer its lost lands despite all the hype and the aid that it received up until that point.

Moving along after having clarified the real reason behind the UAF’s plunging morale over the past year, drones have made the battlefield more unbearable than before, and the amount of time between rotations has grown since some troops simply can’t leave their positions without risking their lives. CNN then added that “In just the first four months of 2024, prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against almost 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted”.

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J.B. Shurk
American Thinker

Right now, the United Kingdom is barreling toward totalitarianism. After a second-generation immigrant reportedly murdered several children in a vicious stabbing attack last week, native Brits took to the streets to denounce their country’s criminally dangerous open borders. If these outraged citizens had been members of Antifa, the press would have compassionately framed their actions as “mostly peaceful protests” deserving of praise.

Instead, because the public’s fury is directed toward one of globalism’s sacred cows — mass migration — angry parents have been condemned for fomenting “violent riots.” Protecting children from serial killers and sexual predators, it seems, is not “politically correct.” Of course, anyone familiar with the Rotherham grooming scandal already knew that

The problem, according to the ruling Establishment, is not that open border immigration policies have led to marked increases in violent crime and cultural hostility, but rather that ordinary citizens have begun to express their displeasure. Commie Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced a two-pronged solution for combatting public dissent: (1) increased social media censorship and (2) widespread implementation of facial recognition technology to beef up the U.K.’s already robust mass surveillance.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Poles fear that their elite will sell out the Volhynia Genocide victims to Ukraine for hubristic geopolitical and economic reasons that’ll result in whitewashing this World War II-era crime.

Ukraine has no realistic chance of joining the EU anytime soon since it doesn’t meet the bloc’s criteria, but another obstacle has unexpectedly emerged, and that’s the Volhynia Genocide dispute with Poland. Kiev refuses to recognize the World War II-era slaughter of over 100,000 ethnic Poles in that region and Eastern Galicia as genocide and has dragged its feet on exhuming the victims’ remains. This issue catapulted back to the forefront of their ties after its Foreign Minister’s provocative comments last week.

“Kuleba Equated Ukraine’s Genocide Of Poles With Poland’s Forcible Resettlement Of Ukrainians” when attempting to deflect from a question about this, which provoked the indignation of so many Poles that their German-backed Ukrainophile Prime Minister felt forced to condemn what he said. Tusk described it as “unequivocally negative” and pledged that “Ukraine, one way or another, will have to meet Poland’s expectations” on this issue.

The irony though is that Tusk oversaw the signing of a Polish-Ukrainian security pact over the summer that included a controversial clause about standardizing their historical curricula, which was analyzed at the time as implying that Poland planed to whitewash the genocide that it commemorates yearly. The only reason why he’s now demanding historical justice is because he fears that trying to sweep the issue under the rug after Kuleba’s comments could harm his party ahead of next year’s presidential elections.

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Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Blog

Britain’s authoritarian new prime minister is expanding the scope of already draconian laws to redefine his critics as ‘supporters’ of terrorism

The arrest yesterday of Palestine solidarity activist Sarah Wilkinson, following the arrest of journalist Richard Medhurst last week – both based on an improbable claim they have violated Section 12 of the Terrorism Act – is definitive proof that Keir Starmer’s authoritarian purges of the Labour left are being rolled out against critics on a nationwide basis.

Now safely ensconced in No 10, Starmer can crush the basic rights of British citizens with as much relish as he earlier pummelled the remnants of democracy inside the Labour party – and for much the same reason.

The British prime minister is determined to terrorise into silence critics highlighting his, and now his government’s, complicity with Israel and its genocide in Gaza.

Starmer would rather dramatically expand the scope of already draconian “counter-terrorism” laws than act against the wishes of the United States, either by stopping arms sales to a fascist Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu or by joining South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

There, judges have already ruled that the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians over the past 11 months is a “plausible genocide”. The next step is for South Africa and the many states backing it to persuade the World Court that the genocide is proven beyond doubt.

The usual Israel lobby ghouls, such as David Collier, have been salivating over Wilkinson’s arrest. She faces up to 14 years in jail for supposedly “supporting” a proscribed organisation – namely, Hamas.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

There are many passionate investigative journalists who could ensure that this becomes Biden and the Democrats’ defining legacy if they dedicate their lives to exposing them.

21stCenturyWire published an intriguing report over the weekend about how “Austrian Court Case Reveals More Evidence of Biden, Democrat Corruption in Ukraine”. The gist is that Austria ruled against the US’ requested extradition of a prominent Ukrainian businessman in 2015 on the basis that it couldn’t prove his guilt, plus the documents that he shared in his support proved “the blatant political overtones” of the case. Readers can learn more about the details upon reviewing the preceding hyperlinked report.

What’s sufficient for casual observers to know is that a GOP victory in November could lead to the political will required to thoroughly investigate Biden’s meddling in Ukraine during his time as Obama’s Vice President. This sequence of events can’t be taken for granted though since Trump might lose and/or the Republicans might not win Congress. He declined to investigate Hillary during his first term despite his infamous call to “lock her up” so he might not investigate Biden either if he wins again.

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George Eaton
Rumor Mills News

The Submissive, Holy March to the Broomsticks - Financed by Our Government and Blessed by Our Religions

The Israelis gather up Palestinian men in the West Bank this time, and take them to prison for the "broomstick" treatment, where their intestines are ripped apart and they bleed to death. This is the treatment the Israeli public, the clergy, the government and the military openly support against, what they call "human animals".

This is the holy, blessed and superior government of God himself that the great majority of US politicians fully support, as well as the religions in America. After all, they are told that to bless Israel is to be blessed. A decent people would be against this. Our constitution is against cruel and unusual punishments. Just saying. If we are not under our constitution whose laws are we under?

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

He wouldn’t have gone through with this $3 billion deal if he really thought that the West was trying to overthrow him like he claimed less than a month ago.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic surprised observers when he announced during a meeting with his French counterpart in Belgrade last week that he agreed to a $3 billion deal to buy 12 Rafale warplanes. The reason why this was so unexpected is that his government had recently accused the West of orchestrating an ultimately failed Color Revolution against him in early August that he claimed Russia had also warned him about right beforehand.

It was explained here at the time why “The Serbian Government Is Inadvertently Responsible For The Latest Color Revolution Intrigue”, which drew attention to the legitimate grievances that some patriotic members of its population have against him. These include taking steps that can be interpreted as de facto recognition of Kosovo’s “independence”, voting against Russia at the UN, and allegedly arming Ukraine. Nevertheless, the West still wants a fully compliant puppet, not someone with semi-autonomy.

The last-mentioned observation accounts for why they still kindle Color Revolution unrest in Serbia, though Vucic’s French warplane deal suggests that he doesn’t take it as seriously as he makes it seem. After all, if he was really concerned about being overthrown through weaponized protests like Slobodan Milosevic before him, then he’d have presumably pulled Serbia out of large-scale military talks with the West like the ones that it was engaged in with France up until now.

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Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

At a time when the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has entered a disastrous phase of defeat, the Western elite must shut down all and every critical media.

Absurd charges of complicity in crimes are a cover for closing down free speech and information critical of Western regimes. It’s as simple and as tyrannical as that.

Telegram owner Pavel Durov could be held in France for years while an investigation is carried out. If found guilty, he then faces 10 years in jail. There are sinister echoes of the persecution of Julian Assange in this case.

Telegram founder and owner, Pavel Durov (39) was arrested on August 24 by French police officers as he stepped off his private jet that had landed in Le Bourget airport, north of Paris. He had flown from Azerbaijan.

After four days in custody, Durov was released on Wednesday on condition of paying a €5 million bond and not leaving France for the duration of a cybercrime investigation. Durov lives in Dubai where he has Emirati citizenship, in addition to Russian and French nationality.

The French authorities charge him with complicity in crimes ranging from administering a social platform that permits criminal organizations to conduct drug trafficking and distribution of child pornography. He is also charged with not cooperating with law enforcement to curb criminal networks. His defense counsel denies all charges and maintains that Telegram has abided by all European regulations governing digital media.

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