Benighted Vaccine Ignorance: Thinning of the Eastern European Population

"It's not a tall tale. I see that this disease kills, and strong immunity wouldn't be enough -- only a vaccine can offer protection."

"I'm really scared and I'm pleading with doctors to help me correct my mistake [buying a fake vaccination certificate for his travel documents hauling cargo to European points]."

"You can't heat this illness. You can buy a counterfeit certificate, but you can't buy antibodies."

"Ukrainians are slowly starting to realize there is no alternative to vaccination."

Andriy Melnik, truck driver, Kyiv, Ukraine

"We're seeing low vaccine uptake in a whole swath of countries across that part of the region [Eastern Europe]."

"Historical issues around vaccines come to play. In some countries, the whole vaccine issue is politicized."

Catherine Smallwood, Europe COVID-19 incident manager, World Health Organization

"We are on the verge of catastrophe, pushed by aggressive opponents of vaccination and the lack of funds."

"Regrettably, five workers in my ward have quit over the past week."

Dr.Serhiy Shvets, head, surgical ward, Biliaivka Hospital, Ukraine

"I'm weeping in despair when I see that 99 percent of patients in serious condition with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and those people could have protected themselves."

"We are left struggling to save them without sufficient drugs and resources."

"Fake stories have spread widely, making people believe in microchips and genetic mutations."

:Some Orthodox priests have openly and aggressively urged people not to get vaccinated, and social networks have been filled with the most absurd rumours."

"Ukrainians have learned to distrust any authorities' initiatives, and vaccination isn't an exclusion."

Dr.Olha Kobevko infectious disease specialist, Chernivtsi Hospital, Ukraine 

A medic tends to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Pirogov hospital in Sofia, Bulgaria, October 15, 2021. Photo: October 15, 2021. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

 

On the African continent, populations vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID in every country have little option over whether or not to be inoculated against the novel coronavirus. They haven't the opportunity, since vaccines of any type and origin are scarce, and where vaccines are available they're short-dated and there is a serious lack of syringes. The WHO  calls this lack of equity. It is the wealthy countries of the world that are swimming in vaccines.

And there anti-vaxxers and vaccine-hesitant people in significant numbers represent the only deterrence to having the majority of any population inoculated against COVID. The promises made by advanced countries in the West with ample access to medical equipment and vaccine doses to provide the WHO vaccine-sharing program Covax with doses for the less advanced countries of the world are not meeting their obligations. In Europe there is no shortage of vaccines. The EU is acknowledged as having a high rate of vaccine coverage altogether.

And then, there is Eastern Europe, a dismal failure in vaccine uptake by its populations. Unsurprisingly, as a result of resistance to vaccines, the countries of Eastern Europe are facing a catastrophic rise of     COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Exceptions to the widespread trend of vaccine rejection are the Baltic nations, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. Public distrust is driving a low uptake of vaccines in other Eastern European countries, however.

 

Medical workers carry a patient suspected of having coronavirus on a stretcher at a hospital in Kommunarka, outside Moscow, Russia, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021    AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

 

There were 1,159 recorded COVID-related deaths in Russia in 24 hours, last week, the largest daily death count since the beginning of the pandemic. Roughly a third of the country's 146 million population has been fully vaccinated. In response, the Kremlin ordered a nonworking period to last to November 7. In Hungary private companies can require their employees to be vaccinated if they want to retain their employment, and government employees are required to be be vaccinated. 

Poland reported its highest number of daily infections at over 8,000 last Thursday. A mere 15 percent of the adult population in Ukraine is fully vaccinated, representing the second-lowest rate in Europe, following Armenia's 7 percent. Teachers, government employees and other workers are required to be fully vaccinated by November 8 in Ukraine to avoid suspension in pay. People may not board planes, trains or long-distance buses without proof of vaccination or a negative test.

A black market in counterfeit documents has emerged with fake vaccination certificates selling for $100 to $300. Police have opened 800 criminal cases into workers at 15 hospitals in Ukraine being involved in counterfeit certificates, with 100 mobile units deployed to track down users, according to the Interior Minister. Last week, a former lawmaker was among those arrested. In the western city of Chernivtsi, ten to 23 patients die daily of COVID, with those aged in their 30s and 40s impacted.

Believing the rumours that Western vaccines contain microchips to control people, Lidia Buiko, 72, chose the Chinese Sinovac vaccine: "Priests have urged us to think twice about getting immunized -- it would be impossible to get rid of the chip", she explained, waiting for her injection in a Kyiv clinic. It is estimated that roughly half of Ukrainian medical workers express vaccine reluctance. "The risks of misinformation to vaccination have never been  higher; nor have the stakes", commented     UNICEF representative in Ukraine Murat Sahin.

About 35 percent of vaccine-eligible adults in Romania are fully immunized where tighter restrictions are in effect requiring vaccination certificates for attending a gym, the movies or shopping malls. With a 10 p.m. curfew, shops close at 9 p.m., bars and nightclubs shuttered for 30 days, and masks are mandatory in public. 

 

Bulgaria has a quarter of its adult population fully vaccinated and reports record numbers of infections and deaths. Official data identify Bulgaria with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the 27-nation European Union, with 94 percent of deaths representing the unvaccinated.Authorities in Georgia launched a lottery of cash prizes to entice the population to be vaccinated, where 33 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

"[So many are] afraid of the vaccines because of the immense [amount of] fake information that has flooded social media and TV."

"Every day we see people arriving with shortness of breath and most of them are feeling sorry for not being vaccinated."

Dr.Dragos Zaharia, Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology, Bucharest

"[The government's information campaign] was not designed according to the peculiarities of our country."

"The emphasis should have been done, for instance, on the Georgian Orthodox church, because we have many instances when priests are saying that vaccination is a sin."

Dr.Bidzina Kulumbegov, Georgia

A healthcare worker is waiting for patients at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at The Military Medical Academy in Sofia.

Testament To Humanity : Ghoulish or Preservation of History?

"Twenty meters underground in a maze of galleries, visitors will discover an ossuary containing the remains of several million Parisians. This unique site recalls the history of these Parisians and invites visitors to take a timeless journey."

"A veritable labyrinth in the heart of underground Paris, the Catacombs were installed in the tunnels of former quarries."

Website, Catacombs of Paris

 

"Happy is he who is forever faced with the hour of his death and prepares himself for the end every day."

Subterranean Catacomb plaque

 

People out for shuddering thrills must be the ones who respond to this invitation to visit the bowels of Paris for a view of what the future looks like. Death claims every living creature. We usually bypass any conceivable interest in what happens to our remains when we're no longer possessed of awareness; as our souls lift up and away from our bodies leaving them inert and all systems down. We have become an organic has-been. So how to explain the morbid fascination in viewing millions of skulls and bones in a vast underground mausoleum of endless corridors?

 

People do arrive in droves to personally witness the end of life's leftovers. A myriad, uncountable number of skulls and bones, all that is left when life departs and death descends. The anonymous bones of six million former residents of Paris are on display in the Paris Catacombs, placed there in 1786 when the government of the time thought it best to reduce the congestion created in city cemeteries, traditionally placed in the vicinity of parish churches. They chose an abandoned limestone quarry for the official new Paris ossuary.

 

 

What resulted was miles of tunnels, leading the priests of Catholic Paris to usher ceremonial processions of bone-laden carts into the quarries. There the bones were piled five feet in height, to a depth of 80 feet. Neat walls of skulls completed the process. With the emptying of each church cemetery a plaque was placed identifying the church and district the bones emanated from, along with their date of arrival. Descending a long spiral staircase one arrives in this underworld -- "Halt, this is the empire of the dead" -- to a one-mile subterranean public walkway. 

 

Some fascinated visitors found it irresistible to attempt to come away with a souvenir. Their very own skull to bring home and contemplate from time to time, imagining the brain that once inhabited it, the consciousness and beliefs of the mind that expressed the experience of its wearer. Leading the Catacomb authority to wire the skulls together and post signs warning that all bags were to be checked at the exit. It cannot be known how many enterprising skull-thieves were staggered by opportunities lost thereby.

 

Elsewhere, throughout Europe, the Capuchin Order saw their monks adopt a strategy of hanging their dead brothers-in-Christ to dry following death, to occupy crypts filled with skeletons, opened to the public. Theirs was a mission to have people confront what will be. To come to grips with the reality of their future when their lives expired. To understand that in life they have but one opportunity to live well, following the edicts of the Church. Which would in time determine where they would appear, after death; heaven or hell.

 

Two severed, mummified arms cross one another to make the form of the Capuchin’s coat of arms. Photograph  Dnalor 01

In Rome, the Capuchin Crypt holds bones of 4,000 monks who left life between the years 1528 and 1870, lined up in orderly rows for the gratification of visitors honoured to be invited to stand and gaze upon the past. "We were what you are ... you will become what we are now", reads a plaque instructively. A succinct, spine-chilling reminder of the mortality of all that lives. In Palermo, Sicily the Capuchins' crypt is a subterranean gallery with 8,000 "bodies without souls".

 

In the Czech Republic, monks in Kutna Hora decorate their ossuary with the bones of 40,000 people, many among them victims of the plague. There the monks 400 years ago indulged in artistic displays of bones, imaginatively designing and putting together a lavish chandelier constructed of every representative bone in the human body. 

 

One needn't look to the far distant past to find skulls and bones memorialized as the link between the living and the dead. In our current century Cambodia under the malign dictator Pol Pot became, like China during the Cultural Revolution, a 'killing field'. And like the Russian Revolution that targeted land owners, intellectuals and opposition to the Communist takeover of yet another ancient country transforming itself for the modern era, Cambodia saw two million people slaughtered.

 

In the West, dead bodies, skulls and bones remain interred or are increasingly, cremated. To place skulls and bones on public display is no mere matter of social mores being transgressed in 'grotesque poor taste' but unlawful, falling under the prohibition of 'perpetrating an indignity' to a dead body. Where it is preferable to allow the dead to lie in undisturbed peace. In Cambodia the display of tens of thousands of skulls has another purpose, to mourn the inhumanity of man to man.

 

 

Truth and Consequences

Patrik Mathews, (RCMP Manitoba/Reuters)

"I did not hear any particular apology to our country. to me, it's galling to think someone who's not an American would know better than us what kind of country we should have here and decide that you hate America so much you're going to infiltrate our country and tear it down."

"In the letter you submitted, you didn't necessarily inspire confidence that you've changed to the point that there's no longer a threat of violence from  you."

"Nevertheless, you have stated that all you want to do is go back to Canada and live a normal life. We all hope that is something that will happen once you serve this sentence."

"[...Conversations, text exchanges and planning represented more than merely] wishes and hopes and far-flung fantasies [of a pair of] wide-eyed neophytes."

"They were specific, serious and calculating in the actions they intended to perpetrate."

District Court Judge Theodore Chuang, Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.

Former Manitoba army reservist Patrik Mathews has been sentenced to nine years in prison for his involvement in what the FBI called a neo-Nazi plot to start a race war in the United States.CBC

Nine years in prison for former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Mathews, 28, for his role in a plot to exploit escalating U.S. social tensions in the hopes of triggering a "race war", in the assessment of the FBI. A resident of Beausejour in Manitoba, he excused himself for his ill judgement when "I got involved with the wrong people". As though the choice to connect himself with the white supremacist group The Base was an incidental error for which he was not seriously at fault. He had no idea, he claimed, of the depth and seriousness of their intended actions.

Judge Chuang, after reviewing all the evidence presented to him, and carefully reading through the letter submitted by Patrik Mathews exonerating himself and blaming a misunderstanding on his part, took due consideration of both the defence and the prosecution positions on the punishment to be meted out to the terror-by-accidental-affiliation chastened man who was, he claimed, innocent of any intent to carry out any acts of violence.

Apart from the sentence of 9 years in prison for his lapse in judgement, there is an additional penalty of three years of supervised release once his prison term is completed. And when justice has been served, he will be deported back to Canada. Both Matthews and his co-defenant, U.S. army veteran Brian Mark Lemley Jr., pleaded guilty to weapons charges associated with the plot to precipitate a clash between police and thousands of heavily armed gun control protesters, in Richmond, Virginia.. 

 

In August 2019, Brian Lemley and William Bilbrough attended a training camp for neo-Nazi group The Base. Lemley is standing second from left, holding a long gun in the air. Bilbrough is kneeling in the centre while holding a blade. (U.S. Attorney detention memo)

 

The defence had petitioned the court for location to a prison facility in Minnesota so their client would be located closer to his family in Manitoba.  Originally, he informed the court he believed The Base was committed to ideals that were less extreme, focusing on immigration controls. He characterized the work of The Base as "horrifically and disastrously wrong", though it might have been seen by him to be good, clean fun at the time.

 

He could have been given a sentence up to 25 years in prison, in reflection of the "terrorism enhancement" provision requested by the prosecution. On the other hand, the defense counsel argued a sentence of less than three years, for after all the defendants' plan ultimately was never carried out. Contrastingly, his crimes, prosecutors argued, were serious and his motives even more so.

 

During a search of the apartment Mathews shared with one of the co-accused, law enforcement agents found videos of Mathews saying violent, anti-Semitic and racist things. (U.S. Attorney detention memo)

 

Court had been presented with ample evidence of the plot unfolding, where the two spoke in terms of killing federal officials, derailing trains and poisoning water supplies; all part of a violent scheme to disrupt and exploit political and social tensions in the hopes of triggering a race war in the U.S. Another co-defendant, William Garfield Bilbrough IV, also pleaded guilty to assisting Mathews to enter the U.S. illegally, for which he was sentenced to five years in prison.

The heavily incriminating evidence that came to light was gathered through FBI wiretaps, "sneak-and-peek" warrants, and the cooperation of undercover officers. As all too often happens in cases of this nature, Patrik Mathews' father described his son as a man with a good heart but a troubled soul, who had suffered as a child from being pushed around by schoolyard bullies, resulting in an attitude of social alienation.

Mounties found this handwritten list of mass shootings when they executed a search warrant at Mathews' Beausejour, Man., residence in August 2019. The list included the year, number of people dead and whether the shooter was on medication. (U.S. prosecution sentencing memorandum)

UNHCR Holds the West Hostage to Islamist Terror

The Ramstein military base in Germany has become a makeshift camp for thousands of Afghans  Getty Images

"They [Afghan civilians] really feel like the international community has not stood sufficiently with them."

"There can be all kinds of reasons for people to need to leave [Afghanistan]. But we're trying to assist them where they are."

"We're present in every province and two-thirds of the districts and have a number of partners with which we're working."

"So, we would obviously call on the neighbours to allow those people to be able to seek safety within their countries as well."

Kelly Clements, deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees 

A woman and child walk between the makeshift tents in Nawabad Farabi-ha camp for internally displaced people in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan.   UNHCR/Edris Lufti

 

The international community is being chided once again by a representative of the United Nations from an arm concerning itself with the plight of the world's burgeoning refugee populations fleeing conflict, repression, discrimination and outright violent hostility from the executive bodies that govern various corrupt, autocratic, crime-ridden countries. Including the latest to join a long string of persecuted people anxious to escape what fate has ordained for them, Afghanistan.

Iran and Pakistan require the sympathy of the world for their hard luck in bordering Afghanistan. Destinations of desperation for Afghan citizens anxious to escape the notorious and dangerous maladministration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. For many, the loss of their fledgling democratic status, despite endemic corruption, was far preferable to the hardline Islamists who have restored their previous rule through unrelentingly lethal attacks on government, its agents and agencies.

In its previous iteration the Taliban gave haven to al-Qaeda, allowing it the freedom of operation to plot a spectacularly atrocious series of surprise attacks on the United States of America. A hideous attack that spurred the invasion of Afghanistan and the hunting down of al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters. Even then, the sponsors, trainers, enablers and funders of the Taliban gained the trust of the United States accepting Pakistan's claims that it was a committed partner in combating terrorism.

Sheltering both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Pakistan's Interagency Intelligence group conspired to destroy Afghanistan, even while Washington was generously handing over millions to support the very military that housed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in spitting distance from an elite Pakistan military academy. Both Iran and Pakistan celebrated the return of the Taliban to govern Afghanistan. A return which added fire to the smouldering embers of impoverishment in a country where Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the Taliban hunt down their opponents in constant orgies of slaughter.

 

 

Little wonder Afghan civilians are desperate to escape the clutches of the Taliban; tribal/sectarian minorities are targeted by all three terrorist groups. As are former government elites, government workers, and Afghans who found employment as drivers, interpreters, kitchen staff and other positions with the foreign troops stationed with the NATO-U.S.-led mission to fend off the Taliban and help to incubate democracy in yet another Muslim country.

That great global conciliator, the United Nations, extends yet another humanitarian mission to persuade the West of their obligations to those less fortunate who in absolute fact either admire or venomously detest Western values, among whom are those committed to the jihad of destruction and death visited on the unIslamic world of vice and corruption. That obligation first and foremost, is to help fund Iran and Pakistan, to house and feed the new refugees seeking haven there. Which of course, does not diminish the West's obligation to take in more refugees themselves.

The oil-rich countries of the Middle East; Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Iraq for starters have limitless treasuries. Time for Qatar in particular, Saudi Arabia as well, to step forward and fund their brethren in religious devotion. For is it not so under Islam that there is such a responsibility among Muslims to give aid and succor to suffering co-religionists? All the more so that the bulk of the world's refugees -- from the Middle East to Africa -- flee the violent threat of Islamist terrorist groups pledging allegiance to jihad through membership in Islamic State and al-Qaeda and their offshoots...

 

As for the last dangerously chaotic airlifting efforts by Western nations to bring desperate Afghans to safety in the West, tens of thousands managed to escape during a harrowing week of hopes and expectations both realized and dashed. Many managed to reach haven and security in Europe and North America. Many more were left behind, with no time nor space on aircraft to accommodate their hopes and aspirations to separate from their country of birth for promising new lives. Take more, urges the UNHCR. 

 

The failure through militant Islamism to secure futures for Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, in Africa where countries as diverse as Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Somalia and others see ongoing deadly attacks by al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates, creates more bedlam, more refugees, and countries suffering the ravages of war and the inability to feed their populations. Islam has become a tired and sick theology, no longer what the faithful proudly claim it to be, a religion of peace. 

Exquisite Concerns of Canadian Justice Over the Rights of Convicted Terrorists

"The Board has considered the technology available at the time of your offences and the one in place today that could be used by terrorist groups. As such the Board is of the opinion that your internet usage and communication must be monitored."

"Everyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their devices, and as a parolee, you have a reduced expectation of privacy."

"A broad search of your devices as described above may reveal more information than is reasonably necessary for the monitoring purposes of the special condition."

"In the case the Board did not explain how the broad search power of your devices reflected a proportionate balancing of your right to be secure against unreasonable search and the statutory mandate of the CCRA [Corrections and Conditional Release Act."

Parole Board of Canada

As the proven mastermind behind a bold and far-reaching terrorist plot to attack key government institutions by a group named the Toronto-18, Shareef Abdelhaleem was imprisoned on a 'life sentence' with no chance of parole for ten years, after being found guilty as charged. He was the master architect of a plot to detonate truck bombs in 2006, to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange, a military base, and the Canadian intelligence group CSIS. Plans to storm parliament, take hostages and behead the prime minister all fell under his leadership.

"[Continuing to allow him only one device] was more aimed at making the surveillance more convenient for Correctional Service of Canada as opposed to addressing legitimate concerns about public safety."

Abdelhaleem complaint filed with Parole Board

Muhammad Shareef Abdelhaleem

Granted day parole almost a year earlier, he was effusive in his praise over the decision reached by the Parole Board to release him from prison and allow him to be reintroduced into broader society. There were some constraints imposed upon him, primarily in communications, permitting him one computer device and allowing oversight by the Parole Board in surrendering his password. Living at a halfway house, his initial euphoria over being freed from prison has now given way to a complaint about those restrictions.

Abdelhaleem feels entitled to having those restrictions loosened to permit him more internet freedom and greater computer access; clearly unhappy he has been denied unlimited internet access and limited to either a mobile phone or a computer. The last of the 18 terrorists to be convicted in 2011, this Canadian Islamist who once led a plot to murder fellow Canadians and bomb key government institutions feels he has been hard done by in a country that equates life imprisonment with ten years' incarceration.

Before he became a jihadist he was involved in developing computer software, drove a BMW convertible and bought expensive name-brand garments for himself. Searching for a little more purpose and excitement in his life he found it in fundamentalist Islam that embraces jihad. From a life of freedom and the opportunity to do as he wished, to a decade of incarceration as a terrorist speaks of an ideological conviction born of uber-devout religious devotion.

Abdelhaleem argues that his transformation from ordinary citizen to jihadi terrorist owed nothing to internet communications. That there was no role played by computer communications in his radicalization. Instead, people he came in contact with attending mosques introduced him to the martyrdom glories of jihad and it was there, in mosques, where he was recruited to fame and glory in defending Islam against the infidels he lived amongst.

And though the Board made note of the fact that technology had undergone massive changes since the terrorist who worked as a software engineer left that occupation for the bloodier field of jihad, its use, they point out, has changed as well. The advent of mobile phones, encrypted communications, and radicalization via the internet play a vital role in the terrorist recruitment grand plans for the future.

Even while acknowledging all that and faced with the urgent request (demand) that justice prevail in his case by permitting him freer access to this problematical world of terrorist provocation, the Board concerns itself with ensuring they do not rule on the matter before them in a way that could potentially abrade his Charter Rights guarantees "to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure".

Toronto 18 terrorist plot member Shareef Abdelhaleem, who received a life sentence in 2011, denounced the “blatant injustice” done to him. Photo by Alex Tavshunsky/File

Afghanistan, a Failed Country in Duress

Taliban guards patrol the streets of Kabul

"Children are going to die. People are going to starve. Things are going to get a lot worse."

"I don't know how you don't have millions of people, and especially children, dying at the rate we are going, with the lack of funding and the collapsing of the economy."

"What we are predicting is coming true much faster than we anticipated. Kabul fell faster than anybody anticipated and the economy is falling faster than that."

"You've got to unfreeze these funds [repurposing development assistance to humanitarian aid] so people can survive."

David Beasley, executive director, World Food Program

Every day brings labourers looking for work - but there is little to go round

In the most sorrowful of sinister warnings, it has begun; children are dying and more will follow. Eight orphaned children, all under the age of ten, whose parents had died and who were left to fend for themselves, dependent on handouts from neighbours and strangers in a country where food is scarce and people are facing starvation, did die of starvation. Neglected, no one to be concerned for their welfare, they were simply unable to cope with the challenge of finding enough food somewhere to sustain their existence.

 

This happened in the capital city of Afghanistan. An estimated fifty percent of the population of poverty-wrenched Afghanistan now face food shortages. A serious situation is becoming utterly dire. The country looms on the brink of experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Similar warnings are issued by the United Nations from time to time; starvation in Somalia, in Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Haiti, Central African Republic, and the list goes on. 

 

Tribal and sectarian conflict, internal and external challenges leading to war and persecution. Where there is war, farmers cannot cultivate their fields. Where there is conflict, people flee their towns and villages, becoming homeless and  refugees, finding both shelter and food and welcome hard to come by. A newly-impoverished Afghanistan, victimized by corruption, by ethnic, clan and sectarian violence, now the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has seen international funding dry up, humanitarian charity unwilling to fund the Taliban.

 

Going to bed hungry is the new reality in a country that has seen decades of war

Drought, war and poverty have accompanied the rise to power of the Taliban; endemic, now acute. The eight dead children left on their own to survive, failed to and their bodies were found in West Kabul according to local leaders. Suffering from a tumour their bedridden father had died, and their mother, with heart disease soon followed their father in death, explained local cleric Mohammad Ali Bamiani. Neighbours occasionally brought them bread and water; it was their landlord who found the bodies.

 

The new Taliban administration in Afghanistan, nurtured by Pakistan, accepted by its near neighbours has been blacklisted from accessing overseas-located assets. Charitable funding meant to aid in reconstruction and development would be better used, suggested the World Food Program head, by transforming its purpose to feeding the hungry in Afghanistan. Who now resort to the desperate measures of selling anything they own to obtain food. 

 

To even hope to begin minimally feeding the 23 million food-vulnerable population as winter approaches, the UN food agency requires $220 million each month. Aid groups urge wealthy nations to swallow their distaste in dealing with a violently aggressive Islamist group by diplomatic engagement in hopes of preventing a social/economic collapse that could launch yet another catastrophic crisis of mass migration.

 

Most Afghans are now trying to feed themselves and their children after the economy collapsed

Imprisoning the Enablers of Islamist Death and Destruction

"I stopped eating almost a week ago. My body just can’t take this anymore…this place guarantees you lose your sanity, your dignity, your humanity one way or another…"

"It’s exhausting trying to protect myself all day, all night. I can’t do it anymore."

"I am continually bleeding My teeth are all broken ... my legs cannot walk or stand. I am dying a slow death here and I have done everything I can think of to get help."

"Nothing has worked."

Canadian Kimberly Polman, 42, convert to Islam, ISIS wife, Al-Hol prison camp, Syria

 

"She was hoping she could go home, she was given reason to believe that that might be the case from someone high up in the camp, especially because of the snap election [in Canada]."

"She’s really devastated [that she can’t come home], she’s been sick for a while, she has broken teeth, she has kidney infections…she’s distraught and says she doesn’t want to live anymore….it’s the last thing she has control over."

"I am all for justice, and the choice she made has consequences beyond anything that she could have ever imagined. But we don’t have our Canadian citizenship on merit…even the most hardened criminals and murderers are granted the rights of a Canadian citizen….they are still human beings, they are still Canadians."

Kimberley Polman's sister, Canada

Women and children related to fighters of the Islamic State group wait to board buses and trucks, leaving the overcrowded al-Hol camp to return to their homes on June 3, 2019, in Hasakeh province, Syria. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Baderkhan Ahmad

The families of Canadians who left the country to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the time of its growing 'Caliphate', happy to be part of the revolutionary new sharia-led Islamist scourge that marched into Syria and Iraq, invading towns and cities, confronting the military in each country uniformly fearful of the terrorists' well-earned reputation for committing atrocities purposefully, to inspire horror and gaining that reputation for sadistic brutality that worked in their favour to inspire fear and ensure that opposition would melt away, have launched a lawsuit against the government of Canada.

For its inaction in committing to bring back their citizens now festering in a prison camp specifically meant to hold the wives and families of Islamic State fighter-terrorists. Separate from the Islamist women who dedicated themselves to serving the interests of the men, there is another, secure prison that holds the men in confinement. Among them are tens of thousands of ISIL diehards who arrived in Syria to become part of ISIL's purge of minorities and persecution of civilian populations from abroad; North Africa, other areas of the Middle East, countries in Europe and North America.

Not all ISIL terrorists were captured by the Kurdish armed forces, the only real opposition to the menace of the Islamic State. Many managed to evade capture and to leave the area where they were vulnerable to arrest and detention, to return to their countries of residence, covertly or under the watchful eye of policing authorities there. Some countries imprisoned their returnees, others allowed them to remain at large, under investigative watch. And while the Kurdish forces that police the camps appealed to foreign nations to repatriate their citizens, some have, most have not.

For the women and children, humanitarian groups argue that they cannot be held accountable for the crimes committed by their husbands, that they are innocent, and most certainly the children born to them as 'caliphate' offspring are innocent of any wrongdoing, and should be returned to their real home, not left to fester in the crime-infested, dangerous, inhumane and putrid confines of the Al-Hol detention camp. Where the frustrated guards hardly know where to turn next, amidst the confusion, the violence, the attacks against them, and the murders that take place within the camp.

Of the foreign women who recruited themselves to become ISIL 'wives' at part of an exciting new venture as partners in the future with Islamist terrorists who commonly executed their prisoners in the most lurid, despicable displays of inhumanity, protestations of innocence ring hollow. They knew and they approved of everything that the men they supported were inflicting on helpless unfortunates who were captured by the terrorists. In some instances pre-adolescents were taught to emulate their elders in handling weapons, in beating prisoners, in pulling triggers to cause death.

The Kurdish Autonomous Administration is doing all it can to protect the wider global public from future depredations of these criminals. Who continue to flourish elsewhere, in parts of Africa, in Afghanistan, and who  still inspire acts of terrorism by their adherents in the West. The Kurdish forces that took on that responsibility of protecting the wider world from the vicious brutality of the Islamist horde have had no assistance from any other source in managing the camps where human rights groups speak of squalid hygienic conditions and lack of security. 

It is typical of people to feel themselves to be unfairly judged and treated for merely following their goals in life, abandoning what they have in secure citizenship and a way of life that is far removed from that of hate-festering ideologies of death and destruction. They make the choice to leave the familiar and launch themselves into a brave new world of fascinating adventure. An adventure that is deadly to others, a fact they appear willingly oblivious to, yet feel entitled after the fact, to expect their transgressions to be overlooked.

In this May 1, 2021 file photo, women walk in the al-Hol camp that houses some 60,000 refugees, including families and supporters of the Islamic State group, many of them foreign nationals, in Hasakeh province, Syria.   (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)

 

Haiti in Criminal Free-Fall

"Heavily armed bandits are no longer satisfied with current abuses, racketeering, threats and kidnappings for ransom."

"Now, criminals break into village homes at night, attack families and rape women."

Petition for police action

 

"The motive behind the surge in kidnapping for us is a financial one."

"The gangs need money to buy ammunition, to get weapons, to be able to function."

Center for Analysis and Research for Human Rights, Port-au-Prince

 

"It's madness -- you try to work for the country, to build something, provide jobs, and they do this to you."

"Where is this going? Where is this country going? It's a total mess."

42-year-old businessman 

A street vendor walks past tires set fire at a closed gas station as part of a protest against fuel shortages in Port-au-Prince on Thursday. (Joseph Odelyn/The Associated Press)

 

Safety and security of the person in Haiti? The country was always rife with criminality and corruption but now it is an absolute basket case of a crime wave that knows no boundaries. Violence is surging across the country from its capital to its rural areas where entire towns have been taken over by criminal gangs, and the residents have fled in terror. 

In Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, gangs are estimated to control about half of the city. One day alone this month saw gangs shoot at a school bus in the capital with five people injured, and another group of criminals hijacked a public bus. It made international news, however, when one of Haiti's most ambitiously notorious gangs kidnapped a group of 17 social workers with the Christian Aid Ministries.

 

This is a country economically bankrupt. International aid has always reached Haiti but the country's needs are now so great such aid is no longer even a stop-gap. There are shortages of everything; from fuel to basic foodstuffs and medical supplies. People are desperate for relief, many are on the brink of starvation, and violent protests against government inaction take place on the streets. There is no end in sight for the country's misery.

The businessman who was bewailing the state of lawlessness in his country had himself been kidnapped on his way home from work, in a bullet-proof car. In fear of reprisals, he used only his first name, Norman, in describing his kidnapping where he went unfed for the first four days of his captivity when children who appeared to him no older than ten, beat him with machete handles or gun butts.

Finally released after 12 days when $70,000 in ransom was offered, a considerable reduction from the $5 million the gang demanded to spare his life, he speaks of at least ten others he knows who were snatched by gangs demanding ransom be paid, among them his mother. The group associated with the Chrisian Aid Ministries were on a visit to an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince.

 

A protester threatens to throw stones at motorists trying to pass a road block set by anti-government demonstrators in Port-au-Prince on Thursday. (Odelyn Joseph/The Associated Press)

 

The shock assassination of President Jovenel Moise appeared to unleash the country's security as its politics disintegrated, seemingly leaving no one in charge. In Croix-des-Bouquets, a suburb of the capital, the criminal gang known as 400 Mawozo, the same gang that kidnapped the sixteen Americans and single Canadian in the latest bold escapade demanding ransom, controls the town.

Shopkeepers on the town's main street were kidnapped and ordered to sell their possessions to pay off the ransom demanded by 400 Mawozo. As soon as they were able, they all fled to safety elsewhere, but for the fact there is no 'elsewhere' where there is safety in the impoverished country where criminality is rampant and the population cowers in fear, unable to go to work, to send their children to school.

Gang members recruit local children, encouraging youths to beat people as part of their training, with the intention of producing a more violent generation of gang members. Churches have become frequent targets, priests kidnapped while addressing their congregations, even when a church ceremony is being streamed live on Facebook. 

Seven Catholic clergy, five Haitian, two French were among ten people kidnapped in Croix-des-Bouquets by the 400-Mawozo gang in April; eventually released once ransom was paid, but  unlikely to have been the $1 million demanded by the gang. The ransom demanded for the 17 kidnapped aid workers is $1 million for each to be released, a total of $17 million. One priest whose ransom had been paid, has never been released.

People protest for the release of kidnapped missionaries in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Tuesday. (Joseph Odelyn/The Associated Press)

Reality as Opposed to the Narrative

“The designation decisions published by the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing of Israel list extremely vague or irrelevant reasons, including entirely peaceful and legitimate activities such as provision of legal aid and 'promotion of steps against Israel in the international arena'."

UN Human Rights Office, Ramallah

 

"The Israeli government did not give us advance warning [that the Palestinian groups would be blacklisted'."

"We believe respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and a strong civil society are critically important to responsible and responsive governance."

Ned Price, spokesman, U.S. State Department

 

"Those organizations [six named Palestinian NGOs] were active under the cover of civil society organizations, but in practice belong and constitute an arm of the [PFLP: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] leadership, the main activity of which is the liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel."

"The security organizations will continue to act and intensify the strikes against terrorism and the terrorist infrastructure everywhere, and by all means."

"I call on the countries of the world and international organizations to assist in this fight and to avoid contact with companies and organizations that supply materials to terrorism."

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz 

 

"Those funds [received from EU member states and the United Nations] served the Popular Front for payments to security prisoners’ families and martyrs, wages for activists, enlistment of activists, promotion of terror activity, promotion of the Popular Front activity in Jerusalem, and distribution of the organization’s messages and ideology."

Israel’s Ministry of Defense

 

"[The announcement by the Israeli government] confirms what our research has shown for years—this time six Palestinian NGOs were designated as terrorist organizations as part of the PFLP network."

"All are funded by European [governments] and deeply involved in political warfare against Israel."

NGO Monitor, watchdog group tracking anti-Israel nonprofits  

PFLP terrorists Abdul Razeq Farraj (l) and Ubai Aboudi (r) at Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah, Feb. 2, 2017. (Facebook)

Now that's unexpected, is it not? Israeli intelligence sources identify the background commitment of  ostensible charitable and human rights organizations for the Palestinian cause, a cause dedicated to ultimately succeeding in demolishing the presence of the Jewish state to enable Palestinians to claim 'all clear' in their assumption of creating a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea". The culmination of their public relations campaigns capturing Western support claiming and finally attaining the sovereign status on the entire area occupied by Israel, that tiny sliver of land representing a mere portion of Judean geographic heritage.

 

On Friday, Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz captured immediate international attention -- mostly from the sources that so generously fund the Palestinian Authority's corrupt regime with its 'pay for slay' program, glorifying the exploits of deadly attacks against Jews by Palestinian 'martyrs' exemplifying commitment to 'resistance' against the 'occupier', on territory that the State of Israel through its military defence against Arab states' attack in 1967 gained. And where all other countries in the world once success in defence is achieved, gains are absorbed, where Israel is concerned this is unacceptable.

 

Palestinian victimization is a narrative beloved of Israel's critics, and they are legion. Israel's willingness in one successive government after another to come to a bargaining table to make concessions for peace made no inroads whatever in the Palestinian mind, incited by leaders who committed to aggravated assault against Jews in their midst, vowing never to live among Jews, while Palestinian Arabs who remained on their land with the re-creation of the State of Israel do live among Jews, as citizens of the country, unwilling to live under PA or Hamas rule in the West Bank or Gaza, but resentful regardless.

The European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Canada among others sanctimoniously fund the Palestinian 'refugees' living in the West Bank and Gaza, knowing full well, proof amply given, that there is no end to corruption, to incitement of violence against Israel; that celebration of the martyrs to the 'cause' will see their families given monthly financial awards, street and social center naming ceremonies. That school curricula, television programs and songs lionize 'martyrs' to inspire children to hate and to aspire toward vengeance.

 

Palestinian celebrate during a rally marking the 46th anniversary of the founding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP), in Gaza City, 7 December 2013. (Emad Nassar/Flash90)

 

Israel is called to account when it identifies and designates the funding connection between Palestinian charities and Palestinian terrorist groups. Any group can identify themselves as human rights organizations, groups whose specific aim is to demonize the real victims of Palestinian violence. Groups that excel in currying favour with western financial granting bodies who legitimize them, and continue portraying themselves as victims of violence while supporting those who mete out violence to Israel's civilian populations.

 

Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Friday that six named civil society groups have been designated terror organizations, on the basis of their having effectively operated as enablers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group which most European and North American countries list as a terrorist group. A backlash took no time in response, with the European Union, the Palestinian Authority, progressive Democrats, US Jewish groups, and international human rights organizations expressing outraged criticism. 

"[The] declared organizations received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations, using a variety of forgery and deceit", stated the Israeli defence ministry, while pointing out the funding supported activities of the PFLP who even though declared a terrorist group in many western countries is still viewed sympathetically, while at the same time European funding agencies balk at being tangentially linked with funding their activities. To accept Israel's findings is to proclaim themselves guilty.

Pro-Palestinian protesters march outside the White House, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2021 in Washington. (AP/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)

And while not denying ties to the six groups identified by Israel as funneling funds to the PFLP, Kayed Al Ghoul, an official with the group, said they maintain relations with civil society organizations across the West Bank and Gaza: "It is part of the rough battle Israel is launching against the Palestinian people and against civil society groups, in order to exhaust them", he maintained. And he should know; it is part of the violent battle the PFLP launches against Israel in hopes of exhausting its will to survive.

Our World is an Unsafe Place

"NATO faces the most complex security environment since the end of the Cold War. Russia's behaviour remains assertive and destabilising, and terrorism continues to represent a global security challenge and a threat to stability. At the same time, the rise of China is shifting the global balance of power, with implications for the Alliance's security, values and way of life. Growing global uncertainty, more sophisticated and disruptive cyber and hybrid threats, and exponential technological change are having a substantial impact on the Alliance."

"Russia's aggressive actions, including the threat and use of force to attain political goals, challenge the Alliance and undermine Euro-Atlantic security and the rules-based international order. Russia has become more assertive with its illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea (2014), the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine, its military build-up close to NATO's borders, its hybrid actions, including disinformation campaigns, and its malicious cyber activities."

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

 

"It has not been more difficult since the end of the Cold War."

"We still have avenues and channels for communications with Russia, but we regret the Russian decision to close the two NATO offices in Moscow, and to also stop their activity at that NATO mission here at NATO."

"NATO's approach to Russia remains the same as before, meaning credible deterrence and defense, combined with efforts to have a meaningful dialogue with Russia."

Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General, NATO

 

"This isn't new behavior [on Moscow's part]."

"This is the way of deterrence [the 30-member NATO agreed-upon plan].".

"And this is being adapted to the current behavior of Russia -- and we are seeing violations particularly of the air space over the Baltic states, but also increasing incursions over the Black Sea."

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer

The Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin have long been placed on notice. That occurred when Russian troops violated Georgia's sovereign border and facilitated two breakaway provinces to declare their intentions and re-occurred when ethnic Russian Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine declared their independence from Kyiv and the reassignment of allegiance to the Russian Federation. 'Invisible' Russian troops were there to help and encourage them.

 

And when Russia appropriated the Crimean Peninsula, annexing it as an integral, traditional, historical part of Russia's beating heart, NATO called on its members to pledge their participation -- more symbolic than conflict-ready -- in troops to be stationed in the near-abroad of former Soviet satellites to ensure the Kremlin understood the message, loud and clear. NATO on the periphery of Russian geography, giving assurances to concerned Baltic states.

 

And now a new master plan to defend eastern Europe against potential attacks on presumed multiple fronts. Moscow issuing territorial threats on land, sea and air, a repetition of Beijing's behaviour in the South China Sea, the Himalaya, its contesting of disputed geographic claims with its neighbours. One focus at a time. The strategy's purpose is in preparation for a presumed attack, simultaneously in the Baltic and Black Sea regions by a nuclear-armed, belligerent, former world power.

 

"We continue to strengthen our alliance with better and modernized plans", NATO's Jens Stoltenberg assured Europe, with an added approval of a fund for the development of new digital technologies, in a world where cyber attacks are increasingly becoming the new and preferred mode of intimidation, threat and cyber-war. (Think Estonia) Strictly proactive, preventive, not in reaction necessarily to a presumed near-pending conflict by a Russia which denies intentions of any aggression, accusing NATO itself of fomenting a destabilizing atmosphere.

Uran-9 combat unmanned ground vehicle. Image: Vitaly V. Kuzmin/vitalykuzmin.net

The Concept for Deterrence and Defence in the Euro-Atlantic Area, the new strategic master plan, has the approval of European diplomats to NATO who agree that its strategic implementation is a requirement in the face of Russian development of advanced weapons systems, while deploying troops closer to the borders of NATO's allies.  A nervous-making gesture if any were needed, to validate the necessity of such a deterrent plan-of-action. 

More detailed regional plans will be formulated by the final days of 2022, according to an American official, where NATO will determine what further weapons are required and how best its forces are to be positioned. Russia amassed a staggering 100,000 troops on Ukraine's border in May, simulating an invasion scenario, a theatrical tease with sinister overtones. New combat robots were deployed in military drills in September with Belarus, further alarming the Baltic states.

The Kremlin's determination in advancing Soviet military space systems could have the potential to attack orbiting satellites as it develops artificial intelligence technologies that could disrupt allied command systems. In 2018 "super weapons" were unveiled, including nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missiles capable of evading early-warning systems. Provocative, intimidating, assertive and needful of responsive recognition.

"Russia is pursuing the incremental integration of asymmetric force-multiplier technologies into its established and legacy weapons systems. Meanwhile, the defence industry is developing new systems and capabilities in military robotics and has successfully integrated unmanned vehicles, particularly aerial drones, into its military operations. In the space sector, Russia is pursuing the development of capabilities able to potentially counter and disrupt an adversary’s satellite operations. Finally, AI technologies are being developed with a view to the disruption of Western command and control systems and communication facilities, as well as the establishment of information superiority."

Chatham House