Dades Valley, Morocco – At the foot of the High Atlas mountain chain in southeastern Morocco, each village is named after the river that used to run through it. But today dry palm trees surround empty riverbeds and bridges now cross only stones left underneath. 💬 “When I was a child I used to swim in this river. There was an incredible fish diversity. Today half a century later, my wadi [valley] is completely dry,” says Yousef, a farmer from Kalaat MGouna, east of the gateway city of Ouarzazate. Yousef, a retired immigrant worker who lived in France, returned to his home village to grow olives, almonds, and pomegranate trees. Little did he know that irrigating his crops would become an impossible task. ● The Ouarzazate semi-desert region is drying out. As in the rest of North Africa, global warming is already showing its effects and badly affecting agriculture. In the context of drought, Moroccan farmers point the finger at the mismanagement of remaining water resources, which have been diverted from their natural course to be set aside for expanding industries. Three industries in southeastern Morocco consume the most water: mining companies, agricultural monocultures, and the world’s largest solar power plant, Noor, generating thermal energy through an evaporation process. Water from the valleys around Ouarzazate is collected in the al-Mansour Eddahbi dam which is below 12 percent of its current capacity. ● Environmental groups in the region have criticised its centralised and extractive resource management of the resource. 💬 “Local communities suffer from the effects of the climate crisis and do not even benefit from these large projects,” says Jamal Saddoq, a representative of Attac Morocco, one of the few associations working on the consequences of the extractive industry in the southeast. Along the roads through the desert, it is not uncommon to notice a white smoke cloud – a sign of mining activity. Excluding phosphates, about 40 percent of the mining licenses in Morocco are located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region. ● According to a recent interview with the Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development Leila Benali, companies in Morocco produce three million tonnes of minerals per year. Managem group, a Moroccan company operating in the extraction of precious metals and cobalt, owns the main sites in the region. This is the case of the Imider mine, the largest in Africa, from where precious minerals such as silver leaves for Gulf and European countries. ● Demonstrators have been calling for an equitable distribution of resources, including water. “We got some achievements but not up to what we expected. About 50 young people have been hired and some development projects have been set up,” the activist said. 💬 “We have been protesting since the 1980s, but little has changed except that groundwater is running out. The company is still pumping water, digging wells deeper and deeper,” says one anti-mine activist, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions from the authorities. “That’s why in 2011 we decided to block the pipeline connecting the mine to its water tank.” As the company’s own website explains, the mining industry needs water to recover precious metals from ore.

The president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embalo, told his Ukrainian counterpart that the Russian leader was open to talking | Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embalo, the president of Guinea-Bissau, claimed on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin asked him to convey a “message” to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky about the importance of “direct dialogue” between Moscow and Kiev. Embalo made this revelation at a joint press conference with Zelensky in Kiev, one day after his meeting with Putin.

💬 “My dear brother, yesterday I was in Russia with President [Vladimir] Putin, who asked me to give you a message, to talk to you, considering that a direct dialogue is very important for our future joint actions,” Embalo said.

The president of Guinea-Bissau also revealed that he saw himself as the “bearer of certain impulses” by contributing to the restoration of relations between Russia and Ukraine. ● Before his meeting with Zelensky, Embalo told journalists that he found Putin “to be very open to negotiating with President Zelensky” and that he was looking forward “to conveying this goodwill” to the Ukrainian leader.

Kremlin clarifies reports on Putin's ‘message’ to Zelensky (RT.com)

Mali seeks UN help to stop France abetting terrorists

Heart-wrenching footage shows the moment a stray dog tried to bury a cat that died after being hit by a car in Egypt. The merciful dog was seen first carrying the poor cat to the soil and then digging the ground with its nose to bury the dead feline.

Official delegates from wealthy developed nations, like Australia, UK and the US, spoke in strong support of the amendments and urged other states to join them in signing away their countries' sovereignty.

The first sign, however, that things might not be going the globalists' way, came on Wednesday, the 25th of May, which just happened to also be Africa Day. Botswana read a statement on behalf of its 47 AFRO members, saying they would be collectively witholding their support for the 'reforms', which many African members were very concerned about. [...] MORE

LeaveTheWHO.com (James Roguski)

The Russian military has spent over two months now detailing the extent and reach of the US military-biological research effort in Ukraine, revealing that the Pentagon has used the country as a testing ground for the study deadly weapons agents, and uncovering the tangled web of military, corporate and political interests behind these activities.

Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defence Troops chief Igor Kirillov issued a fresh briefing on Friday, providing new information on US military biological activities in Ukraine, and as well as details on what his forces know about monkeypox, the smallpox cousin which has caused a global health scare in recent weeks. The Pentagon, he said, introduced a mandatory smallpox vaccination back in 2003, with US diplomats and medical personnel also required to be jabbed against the infectious disease.

💬 "This indicates that the United States considers the smallpox pathogen as a priority pathogenic agent for combat use, and ongoing vaccination measures are aimed at protecting their own military contingents," Kirillov said. The complete US "Army Smallpox Preparedness and Vaccination Program Implementation Plan" document can be found here. [...] Kirillov took note of the WHO's conclusions that the causative agent of the monkeypox virus being met today originated in Nigeria, pointing out that this is "another state upon whose territory the United States has deployed its biological infrastructure."

Due to not registering in the national digital identity database (NIN) Nigeria has blocked a total of 73 million mobile phones, which has prevented them from making outgoing calls.

Nigeria is one of dozens of African countries with SIM registration laws, including Ghana, Egypt, and Kenya. Authorities claim the regulations are required for security, but digital rights advocates believe they enhance monitoring and threaten privacy. For almost a decade, Nigeria has been issuing 11-digit computerized national identity cards, which contain a person’s personal and biometric data, such as fingerprints and a photograph. To create a bank account, apply for a driver’s license, vote, obtain health insurance, or file tax returns, you must have a National Identity Number (NIN). Every active mobile phone number in Nigeria must be connected to the user’s NIN by 2020, according to the country’s telecommunications regulator. It has regularly delayed the deadline till this year’s March 31st.

According to LifeSiteNews, a Catholic publication, the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association is charging UNICEF and WHO with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus vaccination program sponsored by the Kenyan government. The Kenyan government denies there is anything wrong with the vaccine, and says it is perfectly safe. The Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, however, saw evidence to the contrary, and had six different samples of the tetanus vaccine from various locations around Kenya sent to an independent laboratory in South Africa for testing. The results confirmed their worst fears: all six samples tested positive for the HCG antigen. The HCG antigen is used in anti-fertility vaccines, but was found present in tetanus vaccines targeted to young girls and women of childbearing age.

One of Nasa's experimental research craft has been spotted on an African runway amid claims it is being used to create high resolution 3D maps "to fight terrorism". Satellite images confirm the WB-57 aircraft was on an American military airstrip in eastern Africa a few weeks ago. However, officials have refused to reveal what it was doing there.

Tunisians will vote today for their first five-year parliament since they overthrew dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. ● But polling from the Pew Research centre in Tunisia shows support for democracy has dropped from 63 per cent in 2012 to 48 per cent, while demand for a strong leader rose from 37 per cent to 59 per cent. In 2013, a coalition dominated by the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party stepped down in favour of a technocratic government. The constitution it wrote is described as one of the most progressive in the region but turmoil and deadlock have kept away foreign aid, tourism and investment. The economy is now the big issue in the election. Disaffection is particularly strong among the young; in Tunis neighbourhoods such as Tadamon it is hard to find any young people registered to vote.

Robert Barsocchini ■ Following the standard US playbook, the Obama regime and its accomplices made up crimes to propagandize their populations into accepting illegal aggression and terrorism against Libya in 2011, and now ignore the actual crimes being committed in the Libya shoved, by the West, into “the abyss”. [...] Cockburn...notes that, after lying to fabricate the pretext for aggression, the Western governments and media outlets have fallen mysteriously silent on Libya as the country has spiraled into oblivion. The West thus again all but insists we notice that humanitarian crises play no role in drawing their attention, and that they only trumpet – or invent – human rights violations to cover Western aggression, which is carried out, Cockburn notes, “always in the interests of the country intervening.” The West immediately lost its feigned concern over the “human rights” violations it exaggerated or simply made up regarding Libya because they were never of concern to begin with, and the West made things much worse: the illegal US-led attack instantly killed or led to the deaths of up to hundreds of thousands. [...] When we mute Western government and integrated corporate propaganda (what they say) and look at what they actually do, what is left? The bare reality of a brutal Western terror axis butchering, as it always has, any group of people that could potentially deter Western domination and thus cut into the percentage of global wealth captured by Western predators.

Ebola situation in Sierra Leone is "catastrophic" and "vastly under-reported" - "There are several villages and communities that have been basically wiped out. In one of the villages I went to, there were 40 inhabitants and 39 died." ● Ebola has wiped out whole villages in Sierra Leone and may have caused many more deaths than the nearly 5,000 official global toll, a senior coordinator of the medical aid group MSF said Friday. Rony Zachariah of Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said after visiting Sierra Leone that the Ebola figures were "under-reported", in an interview with AFP on the sidelines of a medical conference in Barcelona. "The situation is catastrophic. There are several villages and communities that have been basically wiped out. In one of the villages I went to, there were 40 inhabitants and 39 died," he said.

● Twenty years on from the Rwandan genocide, This World reveals evidence that challenges the accepted story of one of the most horrifying events of the late 20th century. The current president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, has long been portrayed as the man who brought an end to the killing and rescued his country from oblivion. Now there are increasing questions about the role of Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front forces in the dark days of 1994 and in the 20 years since.
● The film investigates evidence of Kagame's role in the shooting down of the presidential plane that sparked the killings in 1994 and questions his claims to have ended the genocide. It also examines claims of war crimes committed by Kagame's forces and their allies in the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and allegations of human rights abuses in today's Rwanda.
● Former close associates from within Kagame's inner circle and government speak out from hiding abroad. They present a very different portrait of a man who is often hailed as presiding over a model African state. Rwanda's economic miracle and apparent ethnic harmony has led to the country being one of the biggest recipients of aid from the UK. Former prime minister Tony Blair is an unpaid adviser to Kagame, but some now question the closeness of Mr Blair and other western leaders to Rwanda's president. [Hat tip: Steigan Blogger][Video]

Paul Craig Roberts ■ More information is available that suggests the the government had advance information that ebola was coming to the US and that the government expects a much larger outbreak of the disease in the US than it admits. ● Keep in mind that Washington is evil and has been killing people in seven countries for thirteen years based entirely on lies. Keep in mind that Washington has a long list of countries that it has destabilized. ● Most recently Washington overthrew the elected government in Ukraine and is currently working on the remaining independent governments in the Middle East, Russia, and China as Tony Cartalucci’s article documents. For six case studies of how Washington overthrows governments, read The Brothers. Here is a report from Natural News. ● The U.S. government knew about the outbreak in advance, but didn’t warn the public - It’s now clear that the U.S. government has long known this outbreak was coming but did nothing to warn the public. In early September, the government sought to purchase 160,000 Ebola hazmat suits from a U.S. supplier. Furthermore, according to this report on SHTFplan.com, “Disaster Assistance Response Teams were told to prepare to be activated in the month of October.” Don’t you find it strange that while the government itself was gearing up for an October disaster, the public wasn’t told a thing about any of this?

Aggeliki Dimopoulou ■ Is The US Government The Master Criminal Of Our Time?

Zero Hedge: Chicago Hospitals Monitoring 2 Sick Passengers From Liberia, CDC Not Testing For Ebola

Paul Craig Roberts ■ US Army withheld promise from Germany that Ebola virus wouldn’t be weaponized || German High Government Official Seeks Washington’s Reassurance that the US did Not Weaponize the Species of Ebola that Germany Made Available to Washington. Washington has not provided the reassurance. By providing the virus to Washington prior to effective reassurances, Germany is complicit in the breakout of a bio-warfare grade of ebola, which has now spread to the US and Europe. At this point, it is not clear that this ebola strain will be contained or whether Washington has any intention or ability to contain it. The arrogance and inhumanity of Washington is beyond comprehension.

US Army withheld promise from Germany that Ebola virus wouldn’t be weaponized || (RT.com) The United States has withheld assurances from Germany that the Ebola virus – among other related diseases – would not be weaponized in the event of Germany exporting it to the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. German MFA Deputy Head of Division for Export Control Markus Klinger provided a paper to the US consulate’s Economics Office (Econoff), “seeking additional assurances related to a proposed export of extremely dangerous pathogens.” Germany subsequently made two follow-up requests and clarifications to the Army, according to the unclassified Wikileaks cable. ”This matter concerns the complete genome of viruses such as the Zaire Ebola virus, the Lake Victoria Marburg virus, the Machupo virus and the Lassa virus, which are absolutely among the most dangerous pathogens in the world,” the request notes.

Wikileaks: GERMANY REQUESTS ASSURANCES ON VIRUS EXPORT
Aggeliki Dimopoulou ■ Is The US Government The Master Criminal Of Our Time?

The UN's health watchdog, the WHO, says there are 60 days left to contain the Ebola outbreak, which has already claimed almost 5,000 lives. This is what you need to know about the killer virus.

1. It has been here for decades - The virus lives naturally in animals, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The first two recorded outbreak were in 1976. The Ebola virus (EBOV) is one of five members of the Ebolavirus genus, four of which cause lethal hemorrhagic fever. It was previously called Zaire virus, after the country that is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are currently two separate Ebola outbreaks underway. In addition to the one in Western Africa, which has already spread to the US and Europe, there is another one in the Congo. Bats are the natural reservoir of the virus, because they can carry it without getting ill. Apes can suffer from it too. Humans may get infected by eating bushmeat or through feces, after which the virus can spread from human to human via blood, saliva and other fluids.

Paul Craig Roberts ■ Ebola Safety Protocol Appears To Be Defective

I møte med svensk partikollega begrunnet Jens Stoltenberg Libya-bombingen med at krigen var «utmerket trening for det norske luftvåpenet». Sentrale svenske sosialdemokrater skal ha blitt dypt provosert. ● Det er tidligere kjent at daværende statsminister Jens Stoltenberg var den viktigste pådriveren da Norge gikk til krig mot Libya i 2011. I en ny bok av den svenske forfatteren Daniel Suhonen kommer det fram at Stoltenbergs holdninger til krigen sjokkerte de svenske sosialdemokratene. Boka kaster nytt lys over det politiske spillet som foregikk i kulissene da Norge besluttet å bruke tung militærmakt mot diktatoren Muammar al-Gaddafi. ● Seint på kvelden torsdag 17. mars 2011 åpnet Sikkerhetsrådet i FN for militær inngripen i den libyske borgerkrigen. Tidligere samme dag hadde daværende utenriksminister Jonas Gahr Støre argumentert hardt mot vestlig inngripen i det nordafrikanske landet.To dager seinere, lørdag 19 mars, meldte daværende statsminister Jens Stoltenberg at seks norske F16-fly skulle delta i krigen. Partilederne i SV og Senterpartiet ble orientert på telefon, lederne i opposisjonspartiene ble varslet på sms.Den eksepsjonelt kjappe beslutningsprosessen ble begrunnet med at opprørsbyen Benghazi var omringet av Gaddafis styrker. Vestlige ledere ville avverge et blodbad. På et møte i Paris 19. mars argumenterte Stoltenberg sterkt for militær inngripen.Daniel Suhonen peker i sin ferske bok på et annet motiv for krigsdeltakelsen: Stoltenberg skal ha begrunnet den norske innsatsen med at bombingen var «utmerket trening for det norske luftforsvaret».

Pål Steigan ■ Still Stoltenberg for en krigsforbryterdomstol!

Peter Piot was a researcher at a lab in Antwerp when a pilot brought him a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had fallen mysteriously ill in Zaire. ● Professor Piot, as a young scientist in Antwerp, you were part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. How did it happen?

I still remember exactly. One day in September, a pilot from Sabena Airlines brought us a shiny blue Thermos and a letter from a doctor in Kinshasa in what was then Zaire. In the Thermos, he wrote, there was a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had recently fallen ill from a mysterious sickness in Yambuku, a remote village in the northern part of the country. He asked us to test the sample for yellow fever.

VG: Norwegian woman infected with Ebola
RT.com: Ebola in Spain: 4 people including nurse hospitalized in Madrid
Washington Post: In the medical response to Ebola, Cuba is punching far above its weight

Niles Williamson ■ Under the guise of a humanitarian mission aimed at containing the spread of the Ebola virus, the Obama administration is exploiting the outbreak to establish a solid military footing on the African continent. West Africa continues to be ravaged by the worst outbreak of Ebola since the first case was identified in northern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976. [...] The US plan for containing the epidemic, codenamed Operation United Assistance, is being overseen by the US Armed Forces Africa Command (AFRICOM) and is expected to cost $1 billion over the next six months. So far the US government has contributed $111 million to the effort, a paltry sum compared with the $1 billion the US has already spent in two months of airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, recently extended to Syria.

Bill Van Auken ■ ["Never letting a good crisis go to waste:"] The Obama administration and the Pentagon have announced the “surge” of 3,000 US troops into West Africa, ostensibly in response to the escalating spread of the Ebola virus in the region. The militarized response to the deadly epidemic has underscored Washington’s increasingly heavy reliance on its residual military superiority in what has become a second “scramble for Africa,” pitting the US against China in a struggle for control of the continent’s markets and resources.

Kicking out the last white farmers may be a ploy to divert attention from an economic catastrophe. ● Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has ordered the nation’s remaining white farmers to be booted off their farms in order that the land be given to black Zimbabweans. In the harshest official policy on race and land reform in a country that has been close to bankruptcy, the 90-year old autocrat said Wednesday that whites may no longer own any land in Zimbabwe. Whites would still be allowed to own businesses and urban apartments. Speaking to farmers in Mhangura, a small mining town about 120 miles north of the capital Harare, Mr. Mugabe said all remaining white farmers should leave – and closed the door even on white families renting farms from black owners, as some several hundred have been doing since most were violently chased away a decade ago.

Former PM criticised over link to United Arab Emirates-funded programme that promises lucrative 'business opportunities' ● Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge "business opportunities" to those involved, the Guardian has learned. The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt's elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on "economic reform" in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo – a decision criticised by one former ally. The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt's crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors' conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Seumas Milne ■ Blair embodies corruption and war. He must be sacked
Sam Kriss ■ Tony Blair, dread creature of the forbidden swamp

Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, the Christian woman sentenced to death and later freed after an international outcry, was briefly re-arrested while trying to leave the country for the US before being released again. ■ Eman Abdul-Rahim, her lawyer, said Ms Ibrahim was held with her two children and husband at Khartoum airport. The BBC said Ms Ibrahim, whose death sentence in May for renouncing Islam sparked outrage, was detained by about 40 security agents. Last night, it was reported that she had been freed. Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, said the Sudanese government had informed American officials that Ms Ibrahim and her family were “temporarily detained” over issues relating to their travel documents. The family was held 24 hours after Ms Ibrahim’s husband, Daniel Wani, who has US citizenship, said they would go to America following his wife’s release.

The Independent: Nigerian man detained in mental institute in Kano 'because he renounced Islam'