According to the data presented in a number of American media sources, a total of 6,979 US servicemen perished in the so-called Global War on Terror that was launched back in 2001 and lasted up until 2018. Over the same time span, the number of civilian casualties that became victims of US-led wars in the Middle East and other regions of the world reached hundreds of thousands. As it’s been revealed by the UN, in Afghanistan alone some 32 thousand civilians died in the course of US-led air strikes and ground operations over the last decade.

However, nobody seems to be willing to acknowledge that various weapons research programs can be as lethal to the civil population as military conflicts are. Nothing is ever being said about the countless nuclear weapons tests that Washington conducted in the second half of the 20th century that keep claiming human lives to this day.

Back in 1986, in the aftermath of the horrendous Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the US would launch a media campaign against the USSR, saying that the radioactive contamination of Europe that followed the disaster was unacceptable. At the same time, Washington chose to conceal the truth about the damage it inflicted upon this planet through a series of nuclear weapon tests on the Marshall Islands.

Against this backdrop, it’s particularly revealing that the recent piece run by the Business Insider states that the contaminated zone of alienation around Chernobyl is less radioactive than the above mentioned islands that were known for their idyllic landscapes prior to a series of nuclear weapon tests. In total, the United States conducted 67 of those in a time span from 1946 to 1958 on the once pristine Marshall Islands.

Less than three years after its atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Washington started conducting nuclear weapon tests, with the most powerful of them being the “Bravo” hydrogen bomb in 1954, which was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It’s been pointed out that the total explosive yield of American nuclear militarism in the Marshall Islands was 93 times that of all US atmospheric tests in Nevada, and more than 7,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Recent studies show that the seabed around the islands, and their soil upon which fruit bearing trees grow have been accumulating radioactive particles at rates that far exceeds any safety standards. Upon testing the soil of Bikini and Enewetok atolls, scientists came to a conclusion that the nuclear weapon tests must have produced a more lasting damage to the environment than was originally anticipated.

As it’s been revealed by Monica Rouco, who was deputy director of Project K = 1, the center of nuclear studies at Columbia University, there has been no independent investigations of radioactive contamination levels and the possible consequences of those on the Marshall Islands prior to 2015, says El Pais. According to this publication, Monica led a group of K=1 scientists that carried out a series of tests on the Marshall between 2015 and 2018. Prior to those tests, the only tests carried out across this former Spanish colony were conducted by the US military personnel from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, that had no interest in telling the rest of the world the truth about the contamination levels.

Against this backdrop, a recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that the lasting effect of a series of US nuclear weapon tests in the Marshall Islands lies in the contaminated soil. It states specifically that:

We were not able to detect any 37Cs contamination in fruits from Enewetak and Utirik Atolls. However, Bikini and Rongelap Atolls have 137Cs levels in fruits that exceed action limits set by IPPNW in 2016, and the governments of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Japan, in response to nuclear disasters in those countries. Additionally, they exceed values found near Fukushima in February 2018 and values measured from 2011 to 2015 in areas near the Chernobyl accident.

Against this backdrop, it’s particularly telling that back in 1968 Washington announced that the Bikini atoll was perfectly safe for humans and announced that the indigenous population may return to their homes, if they choose to do so. When we know that even fifty years after the tests this area remains contaminated, it’s hardly a surprise that some 840 inhabitants of the Bikini atoll died from cancer and other illnesses associated with radioactive poisoning over this period of time. However, nobody wants to speak about these facts in the West.

According to Barbara Rose Johnston, an anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology, it wasn’t reported to an interested world public that the heavily exposed people of Rongelap, once evacuated, were immediately enrolled as human subjects in a top-secret study, Project 4.1, which documented the array of health outcomes from their acute exposures, but did not treat the pain or discomfort of radiation burns, nor utilize antibiotics to offset any potential infection.

There’s no public discussion of the fact that in 1977 the United States used a crater from an especially large nuclear bomb test on Runit Island to stash away the radioactive soil. The 328-foot crater from a May 1958 test was designated the dumping ground. It means that the radioactive isotope plutonium-239, a byproduct of nuclear bombs that decays with a half-life of 24,100 years may be leaking into the Pacific Ocean.

Yet, there’s no strict control over weapons tests that are being carried on in utmost secrecy in various parts of the world today, and it’s safe to say that should something go wrong in one of such tests, we, just like the inhabitants of the Bikini attoll, will be the last to learn about that.

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

В своей новой статье независимый немецкий журналист Грета Маутнер подчеркивает, что не только в происходящих сегодня по вине Вашингтона различных вооруженных конфликтах гибнут мирные люди.

Источником опасности для жизни людей являются и последствия многочисленных ядерных испытаний, которыми армия США особенно злоупотребляла во второй половине ХХ-го века.

Западная пропаганда активно использовала одну из самых страшных невоенных ядерных катастроф на АЭС в Чернобыле в 1986 году для развертывания информационной войны против СССР, на территории которого произошла чернобыльская трагедия. При этом западными СМИ усердно скрывалась истинная правда о другой ядерной катастрофе для человечества, которая была связана с массированными ядерными испытаниями, осуществленными армией США на Маршалловых островах.

А между тем, как сообщает издание Business Insider, недавно было проведено исследование, которое показало, что Чернобыль сегодня менее радиоактивен, чем Маршалловы острова, отличавшиеся ранее девственной чистотой природы, где в период с 1946 по 1958 годы США провели 67 испытаний ядерного оружия.

Авторы нового исследования, результаты которого опубликованы 15 июля 2019 года в научном журнале PNAS, показали, что самая большая опасность последствий ядерных испытаний армии США на Маршалловых островах для всего живого таится в почве. В результате исследований специалисты обнаружили, что присутствие радиоактивных изотопов сегодня там в тысячу раз больше, чем в Чернобыле или  Фукусиме.

Поэтому, уверенна автор, дополнительное международное расследование последствий ядерных испытаний США на Маршалловых островах приобретает особую важность сегодня, как и установление действенного контроля над ядерным оружием армии США и всех стран, обладающих им.

С полным содержанием статьи можно ознакомиться здесь.

According to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Americans own 40% of all guns in the world, with the US ranking first on the list of countries with high gun ownership rates with a result of 120.5 guns per one hundred people, with the war-ravaged Yemen taking second place with 52.8 guns per 100 people. The study carried out by this scientific body back in 2017 shows that US citizens own some 393 million guns.

So far this year, there’s been 292 mass shooting incidents, including those provoked by family disputes. Those resulted in a total of 1300 individuals getting wounded, with a percentage of those receiving lethal wounds. According to a nonprofit research group known as the Gun Violence Archive, while the total gun deaths in the US have actually declined over time, mass shootings have become deadlier and more frequent, with some of those having a strong emotional impact on the US population.

Time and time again, in Colorado, Massachusetts, Texas and Ohio regular citizens would visit those horror sites to express their sorrow and grief, to leave flowers, candles, and to pray. For weeks those towns hit by mass shooting incidents would be crawling with journalists. After every mass shooting in the United States, Americans and others around the world are confronted with the question of what lies behind this distinctly American horror.

It’s been said that it’s doesn’t take a rocket scientist to buy a gun in the United States, as they’re everywhere. It’s said it’s good for your protection. It’s believed that it’s an inalienable right to carry a gun. However, it doesn’t guarantee anything, as you can be shot long before you can pull your gun out. Then again, some people are better shots than others, and if your assault rifle is collecting dust in the attic chances are you won’t get to it in time if your home is being raided.

So far, every mass shooting incident in the US would spark discussions, with some claiming that the gunman was a racist, a psycho that hated Latin Americans, or, as Donald Trump would put it, was mentally unsound.

We would most certainly witness new propositions for gun carrying and storage legislation, demands that anyone who wants to own a gun should be subjected to regular medical examinations. Meanwhile, it’s clear that all of those are completely meaningless, as they won’t change the overall situation. Less than a week after the mass shooting incident in El Paso, a company based in California started selling school backpacks that would provide the level of protection comparable to that of a military grade bulletproof vest. The cost of such a bag wouldn’t exceed 375 dollars per bag. There’s models that won’t be penetrated by a full clip shot from an automatic rifle, but those are twice as expensive. Such gun-violence related businesses thrive all across the US, just like small arms manufacturers do.

Analysts would claim time and again that the rapid spread of white supremacy ideology across the US, together with the growing anti-migrant sentiments are the driving force behind the recent mass shooting incidents. It’s been pointed out that the white men who are driving a surge in white supremacist violence in places like El Paso are sending the same message to nonwhite Americans that their counterparts did in the lynching era: You will never be safe wherever you go.

The term lynching evokes images of the dark times in the American history when black men were dangling from trees, while white racists would pose proudly by their charred bodies. Each lynching sent messages to blacks: Do not register to vote. Do not apply for a white man’s job, according to an essay on the Jim Crow era. It’s worth remembering that the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville in 2017 chanted, “You will not replace us,”and “Jews will not replace us.”

It would seem that the medicine for this social illness would be plain and simple: ban all weapons sales on the public market. Those who are supposed to bear firearms, namely military men, policemen and private security officers would be under close supervision. As for everybody else – no guns are allowed, no matter how proud you are of your history. There’s a reason why security agencies are to be found in most any country of the planet, as there’s professionals who are tasked with seeking criminals and shooting them, if they have no better option in the situation at hand.

The direct effect of a comprehensive gun prohibition legislation can be witnessed in Australia, as Canberra adopted a rather harsh set of rules regulating the sale, possession, and use of firearms back in 1996. Ever since, the number of people dying from gun-wounds in Australia has been decreasing steadily, just like the number of people who bear weapons.

It’s been pointed out that adopting a meaningful gun-control legislation after number of horrendous tragedies should not have been a problem for the US legislators. It was hard to ignore the emotional appeal of the shattered parents who’d come to Washington to plead their case. Yet, even in the wake of Sandy Hook, the US Senate voted down two measures to tighten gun-control laws.

The last major gun-control legislation enacted in the US was the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included a ban on assault weapons. The prevailing evidence shows that mass-shooting deaths fell during the years when the assault-weapons ban was in place, and then rose after it lapsed.

It goes without saying that nobody is going to ban small weapons sale in the US, as American journalists would point time and again there’s no way to bypass the mighty gun lobby. Aside from super profits they reap from selling weapons, they can use the controversy surrounding mass shooting incidents as a political tool. For instance, all of the MSM sources are convinced that gun manufacturers have nothing to do with the El Paso tragedy, as they prefer to push the blame on Donald Trump that allegedly hates Latin Americans. If the Democrats are to be believed, there would be no such tragedy if Trump wasn’t in office. It’s deliberately omitted that such incidents would occur during the time when Trump’s predecessors were in office, and they were just as lethal and numerous.

It’s clear that no matter who would take the blame for the recent incident, and those that will follow, as long it’s no harder to purchase a gun than to buy a can of coke, those incidents will persist in the US.

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

]]> https://journal-neo.org/2019/09/14/how-come-lynching-hasnt-gone-anywhere-in-the-us/feed/ 0 https://journal-neo.org/2019/09/14/sovremenny-j-sud-lincha-v-ssha/ https://journal-neo.org/2019/09/14/sovremenny-j-sud-lincha-v-ssha/#comments Sat, 14 Sep 2019 06:32:26 +0000 https://journal-neo.org/?p=120457

Как подчеркивает в своей новой статье постоянный обозреватель НВО Грета Маутнер, проблема с неконтролируемым в США распространением оружия и массовые убийства ним неповинных американцев уже давно превратилась в бич современной Америки.

Только за первые семь месяцев 2019 года в США произошло 292 массовых убийства, включая преступления, совершенные на бытовой почве. Вновь и вновь к местам массовых убийств, будь то в штате Колорадо, Массачусетс, Техасе или Огайо, рядовые американцы несут цветы, плюшевые игрушки… После каждого случая массовых убийств в США не только американцы задаются вопросом: в чем же причина этого, столь типично американского ужаса?

Как только в очередной раз происходит нечто подобное, предлагается в очередной раз обсудить то новые правила свободного ношения оружия и его хранения, то проведение регулярных медицинских комиссий тех, кто собрался купить оружие.

То, что ужесточение законов об оружии может изменить эту ситуацию, можно наблюдать на примере Австралии, где в 1996 году был принят закон о более строгом регулировании владения оружием. После этого количество людей, убитых огнестрельным оружием, медленно, но последовательно сокращалось. Так же, как и количество семей, члены которых владеют оружием.

Естественно, что сегодня никакой отмены свободной продажи оружия в США не допустят даже на стадии обсуждения не только мощнейшие лоббисты компаний, его производящих, отмечают американские СМИ. Свободная продажа оружия – это еще и весьма эффективное средство политической борьбы.

И пока оружие можно будет купить в магазинах США как банку кока-колы, трагедии, регулярно происходящие в различных городах и школах США, будут продолжаться с еще более ужасающими последствиями…

С полным содержанием статьи можно ознакомиться здесь.

There’s no use denying that the bilateral ties between Berlin and Washington have been in decline for quite some time. Among the reasons explaining this phenomenon one can name a wide range of brazen intelligence collection operations Washington’s agents have been conducting all across Germany. Those operations are only known to the general public due to the valiant efforts of a number of media sources that revealed American operatives being engaged in both the collection of sensitive information on regular German citizens and high-profile politicians at the same time.

In 2013, Wikileaks would reveal that American intelligence agencies wiretapped the cell phone of the German chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of her supporters.

A year later, German security agencies arrested an officer of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) on charges of providing the CIA with sensitive secret documents to the detriment of his homeland.

This was the period of time when Berlin was at odds with Washington over the hard stance that Barack Obama took on Russia. The situation was further aggravated by the inability of the two parties to resolves their differences over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, that was later killed by Donald Trump. Is it of any wonder then that Germany made the decision to stop backing up US military operations across the Middle East during Trump’s term in office, says Die Welt.

It’s curious that back in 2017, Angela Merkel herself hinted that there was a possibility of a divorce with the United States.

Last May, the chairman of the Bundestag’s Economic Committee. Klaus Ernst reminded the much hated United States Ambassador to Berlin that Germany wasn’t a colony of the United States, so it would tolerate no condescending remarks about its energy policies. In turn, the deputy chairman of the opposition Free Democrats (FDP), Wolfgang Kubicki announced his conviction that the repeated interference attempts undertaken by Richard Grenell that undermine Germany’s sovereignty should have prompted Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to declare Grenell persona non grata.

There’s no trace of the US-German friendship to be found anywhere these days, says Süddeutsche Zeitung, with Trump being in office no longer than two and a half years. According to this publication, it’s high time for Berlin to develop a post-Trump plan as it’s clear that Washington would never serve as a protector of German interests again.

Those who still had doubts about the prospects of the bilateral relations between Germany and the US, have recently discovered that Trump is equally eager to impose duties on German goods as if they were manufactured in China. What’s makes this whole situation even worse is that it’s crystal clear that Trump fails to comprehend that those responsibilities a country takes upon itself when it strikes a deal with another state is nothing to sneeze at. This notion can be exemplified by the fact that the Trump administration walked away from the Paris Climate Agreement and JCPOA.

It’s been noted that Angela Merkel would make a public pledge to increase German military spendings to 1.5% of gross domestic product by 2024 and bring it closer to the 2% level members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However, those commitments were announced prior to Washington’s push aimed at blocking Nord Stream 2, a controversial pipeline that will increase the flow of gas from Russia to Germany, along with its attempts to prevent the Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from building Germany’s next-generation 5G mobile network. The Wall Street journal believes that if Germany lowers its military funding it would hardly be willing to purchase US aircraft or service the American nuclear arsenal stationed in the country as announced by the Defense Ministry earlier this year. The move will add further strain to a trans-Atlantic relationship that has been steadily deteriorating.

With Trump’s first term nearing its end, the number of Germans who negatively assesses the state of Germany-United States relations increased to 73%, says a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and the Kerber Foundation. Almost exactly the same percentage of Germans believe that their country should pursue a foreign policy independent from the United States.

Last February, on the eve of the annual Munich Security Conference, the Pew Research Center and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation presented a study showing that above everything else Germans fear the possibility of US influence increasing, as they say this state represents an avid threat to the German national security. This can sound paradoxical, at first, but then we can remember that the German press, like the majority of European media sources, portrays Trump as an unbalanced, erratic individual that is capable of launching new wars without even recognizing it.

It’s hard to describe how Germany, that is a thoroughly pacifist country after decades of Anglo-Saxon brainwashing, will try to approach the challenge of laying the responsibility for the security of the EU on its shoulders. This task contradicts the ideas that the whole nation learned to recognized as its own. This results in a considerable amount of frustration that Berlin experiences in connection with the countless attempts Washington would make to put an end to Nord Steam 2, to make it spend more money on its NATO commitments, instead of leaving Germany alone and abolishing NATO along with denouncing it as a monstrosity of the past. All these aspects of the geopolitical game are taking place at a time when Berlin continues to suffer from its geopolitical infantility. With those elites that remain haunted by the Trans-Atlantic spirits of the past, there’s an understanding that Germany should pursue its own interests that lie in the protection of the European Union from the Brexit disaster and Trump’s attempt to weaken the union.

With deep cracks running across the space that we used to denote as “the West”, Berlin has to find the courage to take the responsibility for its own fate and the fate of the entire European Union into its own hands. It’s been announced time and again that NATO may become a thing of the past one day, but a great many of American political figures has vested interests in preserving it, thus preventing Germany from pursuing its own goals. In this situation, it’s hardly a surprise that Merkel seeks rapprochement with Russia, as it seems much more predictable that the erratic US president.

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

Как подчеркивает в свой новой статье постоянный обозреватель НВО Грета Маутнер, в последние годы отношения между Германией и США стали заметно ухудшаться. Одной из причин этому стали многочисленные факты, ставшие известными общественности Германии благодаря ряду публикаций СМИ, вскрывших бесцеремонную разведывательную деятельность американских спецслужб не только по массированному сбору сведений на граждан ФРГ, но и в отношении государственных секретов Германии.

Однако именно при Дональде Трампе Германия сформулировала чёткий отказ от участия в каких-либо военных операциях США, пишет Der Spiegel.

Сегодня пропасть между лидерами США и Германии слишком глубока, констатирует Die Welt.

После двух с лишним лет президентства Трампа германо-американская дружба разбита вдребезги, пишет Süddeutsche Zeitung. Как подчеркнуло издание, «Берлин должен разработать стратегию на период после эры Трампа. США уже никогда не будут тем защитником, на которого так долго полагались немцы».

За время правления президента США Дональда Трампа число немцев, негативно оценивающих отношения с Вашингтоном, выросло до 73%, следует из результатов последнего опроса социологических институтов Pew Research Center (США) и Фонда Кербера (ФРГ). По мнению такого же количества немцев, их страна должна следовать курсу, независимому от США.

Как отмечает автор, Германия сейчас оказалась в очень непростой ситуации. Здесь правят элиты, воспитанные в атлантическом духе, то есть в понимании того, что «американский поводок» никуда не денется. Однако сегодня Германии нужно удерживать европейское единство в условиях расставания с Великобританией и давления Трампа, мечтающего ослабить позиции ЕС. На этом фоне тенденция разворота немецкого общественного мнения от США к России стала вполне объяснимой, и она в последние годы особенно усилилась из-за «непредсказуемого Трампа».

С полным содержанием статьи можно ознакомиться здесь.

Whenever the name Great Britain is brought up, we start thinking about gloomy skies, Victorian Gothic mansions, perfectly dressed gentlemen and ladies, massive fleets and Shakespearean tragedy. But what do we really know about the UK and the way it treats the most valuable thing any society has – its minors.

If we are to take a look at the recent revelation made by the Independent, one in five British children lives in homes that are severely food insecure according to a report drafted by the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

It would add that the government has been accused of presiding over “significant and growing” hunger as a report warns that one in five children in the UK live in homes that are severely food insecure – making it the worst for child hunger in Europe. A combination of high living costs, stagnating wages and the rollout of universal credit has led to a steady rise in food insecurity – yet ministers have allowed the issue to “fall between the cracks.”

The report cites figures showing that 2.2 million people in Britain are severely food insecure – the highest reported level in Europe. This indicates that the UK is responsible for one in five of all severely food insecure people on the continent.

Further more, a recent study of food poverty in the UK found that the families of nearly 4 million children would struggle to afford enough fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods to meet the government’s nutritional guidelines.

As the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, has recently said:

“That we should need reminding of the UN’s sustainable development goals in such a rich country is a scandalous development.”

Yet another survey commissioned by the National Health Service found that one in eight children in England between the ages of 5 and 19 suffered from at least one mental disorder by the time the assessment was made back in 2017. The survey, which was published in November, also indicated a slight increase in mental disorders in 5 to 15-year-olds, which rose to 11.2% from 9.7% in 1999. Disorders like anxiety and depression were the most common, affecting one in twelve children and early adolescents, and appeared more often in girls.

In the opinion of Imran Hussain, the director of policy and campaigns for Action for Children this whole situation is a major mental health crisis among minors.

However, instead of solving the most pressing social problems that British society is facing today, the sitting ruling elite of the kingdom would rather prefer to conduct psychological experiments on the British minors, even though there’s been an  abundance of those already.

Thus, hundreds of schools across the UK are now preparing to expand the traditional curriculum with a new subject: mindfulness. Students will start to practice mindfulness as part of a study to improve their mental health. It’s said that British children will be bound to work with mental health experts to learn relaxation techniques, breathing exercises and other methods to “help them regulate their emotions.”

Yet another problem of the British society is the aggressive transgender propaganda that floods the local media, in spite of the fact that one’s exploration of his or her sexuality is an extremely sensitive issue for any individual at the age when he or she is the most susceptible to outside interference. However, local journalists are determined to force the issue all the same. Yet, when anyone decides to dispute  this issue would most certainly be silenced or ridiculed. It has come to the point when social services threaten to take boys into care once their parents refuse to let doctors give them powerful sex-change drugs.

According to Mail Online, a total of 17 pupils at a single British school is in the process of changing gender. Most of the youngsters undergoing the transformation are autistic, according to a teacher at the institution, who said vulnerable children with mental health problems were being ‘tricked’ into believing they are the wrong sex. Moreover, it’s been revealed that a local whistleblower reported that few of the transgender children are suffering from gender dysphoria – the medical term for someone who feels they were born in the wrong body – but are just easily influenced, latching on to the mistaken belief they are the wrong sex as a way of coping with the problems caused by autism.

Of course, the American Thinker would reveal to us that a lot of physicians have warned the world against this mania, by pointing out that a great many persons who have gone through the change have experienced “transgender regret” and even committed suicide. Yet, the media remains silent on this issue, and still there’s no arguing that the most disturbing aspect of this frenzy by far is the public intimidation, the insistence that everyone is bound to adhere to the delusional neo-liberal fantasies.

However, it’s clear that parents are getting increasingly more concerned that the only NHS gender clinic for children is risking a “live experiment” by sending hundreds for life-changing medical intervention without sufficient evidence of its long-term effects. Is it of any wonder then that those employed by the National Health Service are quitting their jobs en masse out of fears for their personal safety and the deep moral dilemma they were forced to face.

The above mentioned facts, of course, do not represent the entire picture to London’s most recent approach to raising children. However, they may be described as representative enough to provide us with the concept of how instead of addressing the most pressing issues at hand, local authorities are deliberately making the situation worse.

Is the establishment capable of solving these and other problems accumulated in the UK? Is there any future at all for the local children when they are forced to deal with challenges that most adults find hard to approach?

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

В своей новой статье независимый немецкий журналист Грета Маутнер на конкретных примерах показывает накопившиеся перед британским обществом проблемы в политике в отношении детей.

Каждый пятый ребёнок в Великобритании живёт в семье, которая не может позволить себе полноценно питаться, сообщает Independent.

Согласно недавно опубликованному докладу на тему бедности  в Соединённом Королевстве, около 4 млн детей в стране с трудом могут позволить себе покупать овощи, фрукты и другую здоровую еду в соответствии с рекомендациями правительства по детскому питанию.

Другое исследование, выполненное по заказу Национальной службы здравоохранения Великобритании, показало, что каждый восьмой ребенок в Англии в возрасте от 5 до 19 лет страдает по крайней мере от одного психического расстройства. Это равноценно кризису психического здоровья в детской среде.

Однако, вместо борьбы с бедностью и обеспечением детей элементарной едой, нынешним политическим истеблишментом королевства предлагается изучение техник расслабления, дыхательных упражнений и иных методов, которые помогут учащимся “регулировать их эмоциональное состояние”.

Другой проблемой нынешнего британского общества стала излишне агрессивная трансгендерная пропаганда, заполонившая средства массовой информации. Эксперты предупреждают, что единственная детская клиника гендерной медицины Национальной службы здравоохранения Великобритании (NHS), возможно, ставит рискованный «натурный эксперимент», назначая сотням пациентов кардинальное лечение и не задумываясь о том, чем оно может обернуться в долгосрочной перспективе.

В указанных условиях автор задается вопросом: так какое же будущее нынешний политический истеблишмент навязывает всем и будет ли оно у британских детей? Или же все-таки для решения этих и других накопившихся в Британии за последние годы проблем необходима смена нынешней политической элиты?

С полным содержанием статьи можно ознакомиться здесь.

It’s a commonly known fact that seats in the European parliament are distributed among the EU states in accordance with their population or the so-called “degressive proportionality” approach. To this day, Germany serves home to the largest number of people in the EU, as it population reaches 82 million people, followed by France with 65 million people, Italy with 60 million people and Spain with 46 million people. For the sake of comparison, one can add that the estimated population of Luxembourg barely exceeds 600 thousand people, with Malta lagging behind with some 400 thousand people.

According to the data released by the World Bank, in the time span between 1991 and 2017, there’s been no more than 19 countries that underwent a period of population decline during that time. All of them, except for Puerto Rico, were situated in Europe. The global leaders in this negative trend are the Baltic states, namely Latvia (with a decrease of 26.7%), Lithuania (with a decrease of 23.6%) and Estonia (with a decrease of 15.7%).

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to comprehend that any demographic changes will immediately affect the number of seats a country can claim in the European Parliament, especially in a situation when the population will spike in certain states, while others will have to undergo a period of depopulation.

Demographers say that a country with relatively low mortality rates will increase its population with a birth/death ratio higher than 2.1 (2.1 individuals born per one deceased person). However, if back in 1960 the absolute majority of countries of the world were above this critical level, these days no more than a half of all the countries of the world remain above the threshold. Moreover, the absolute majority of European states have dropped below the ratio of 2.1 children born per woman. According to Eurostat, France with 1.90 and Sweden with 1.78 can still hope to break this trend, while Malta with 1.26, Spain with 1.31, and Cyprus and Italy with 1.32 each, are bound to see their populations dwindling.

Demographic estimations for all of the largest regions of the world are readily available and are being updated every two years by the UN along with Eurostat for EU countries. However, these forecasts show us conflicting trends, as they predict a tangible population growth in a number of small states such as Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland, followed by a moderate growth in a single large country – France, that will have a larger population that any major European state. At the same time, Eurostat says that Germany, Italy and Spain will undergo a period of depopulation over the next four decades.

It’s true that any forecasts should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when we’re talking demographic numbers, as they are influenced by a large number of different factors, including social domestic policies. Additionally, there’s a migration factor that remains highly unpredictable, as no one expected a migration boom in Germany in recent years that resulted in a minor population spike that managed for a brief moment to revert the depopulation trend.

Indeed, Germany that is doing all it can to preserve the status of a leading EU state, is bound to surrender its leading positions to France due to the changing demographic balance between the states. In fact, demography is Germany’s Achilles heel, as it simply does not have the human resources to achieve any of its global ambitions. That is precisely why Germany has taken the path of attracting migrant flows, which resulted in the number of German residents of foreign origin today reaching a record high. According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, in 2016 there were 18.6 million men, women and children with a migration background living in the country, with 52% of them holding German passports. In 2017, the number of people with foreign roots dwelling in Germany grew by additional 8.5%. It’s safe to say that Germany undergoes the same transformation that the Roman Empire went through, where at the end of its prime there were no citizens of Roman origin to be found anywhere. Therefore, the demographic question is probably the most pressing challenge that Berlin has to solve in the coming decades, but it will not be able to achieve this through migration alone, as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep the “melting pot” under control.

However, Germany is not the only state that is facing such a pressing challenge, as it’s most likely, in a few years, indigenous Europeans will constitute an absolute minority in most European countries. No matter how hard Brussels will try to keep its border crossing shut against the influx of new migration waves, Europe will remain a land that attracts virtually every resident of Africa and the Middle East if he escapes war or prosecution or seeks to achieve economic prosperity. In addition, due to their religious beliefs and centuries-old traditions, Muslims will give birth to more children that original residents will, which is going to allow them to put forward the demand that the European authorities satisfy their cultural, linguistic, and religious needs.

Actively eroding local communities are facing the challenge of an increasingly criminal migrant transportation industry. In 2016, the European Union struck a deal with Turkey, and Erdogan agreed to close the Balkan route. Spain has also blocked access for refugees through Gibraltar. But the criminal structures that patronize this industry through a network of international NGOs have found a new path – the Mediterranean. A number of investigations carried out by the authorities of different states show that African migrants arrive to Libya to get transported to Europe by criminal syndicates that charge ten thousand US dollars per person transported in a small boat unsuitable for long sea voyages.

Ships of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are usually patrolling the area tens of miles from the Libyan coast, clearly working hand in hand with the smugglers. They will give light and radio signals, telling the smugglers to put migrants in rubber boats with the latter immediately transforming into persons in distress at sea, with the maritime law bounding those NGO ships to pick them up. As a result, these days 80% of individuals “saved” at sea were taken aboard near the Libyan city of Zuwarah.

The mind-boggling budgets that some of those NGOs have hint us about the true intentions of those participating in such activities. For instance, the notorious Sea Watch has a budget of one and a half million euros, while he largest and most active of such organizations – MOAS sports the budget of 6 million euros. The two ships and drones operated by Sea Eye alone cost half a million euros. Then there’s Proactiva Open Arms with a budget of 2.5 million euros and SOS Mediterranee with a budget of at least 4 million euros. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Among the leading sponsors of such NGOs one can find the notorious billionaire George Soros and he won’t even try to hide this fact. However, he’s hardly the only representative of the American financial elites who tries to weaken Europe by tacitly promoting destabilization and chaos. Indeed, upon getting “rescued” most migrants will feel the moral obligation to defend the demands prompted by such NGOs, thus influencing European politics. Moreover, such NGOs have already put forward their ideological goal – the creation of universal humanity. No borders – no nations. To make the continent united – in culture, language (of course, English), in skin color, in consumption. They do not need people who defend their identity. They do not need Germans, Swedes, Greeks, Hungarians, they need obedient consumers.

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

It seems that nobody is willing to pay attention to the fact that the ongoing armed conflict in the poorest Arab country of the world – Yemen, has recently passed the five year mark. Throughout this time the country would be protected by a resistance movement of the Houthi insurgency from the Ansar Allah movement together with those armed units that remained loyal to the former Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, with the latter being supported by Iran. They are opposing a Saudi invasion force that is supporting the self-exiled puppet president Mansur Hadi and those local groups that pledged allegiance to him.

In spite of the widespread condemnation of this conflict, the ruling elites of the US, UK and Germany keep pumping all sorts of weapons into the conflict zone, thus fanning the flames of the armed struggle.

Formally, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are recognized as strategic partners of the above mentioned three Western states, which results in the British, German and American armed forces taking part in the hostilities. Even though Berlin denounces this fact, it’s been unable to hide that both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have been using German military equipment in the course of the operations they would launch across Yemen. This was revealed by a joint investigation conducted by DW (former Deutsche Welle), Stern, report München, a collective of freelance journalists from Lighthouse Reports and an investigative website Bellingcat. It’s been announced that those taking part in the investigation would analyze all satellite images that they could get their hands on together with the footage taken by Arab journalists in this war zone in a bid to establish the truth.

In violation of those restrictions that were agreed upon by the Union parties and USPD, Berlin has recently approved a sale of one billion euros worth of weapons to the Saudi-led alliance that spearheads Riyadh’s military effort in Yemen. Additionally, the German government approved two more military deals with Saudi Arabia, which was revealed by the State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Ulrich Nussbaum, in spite of the fact that a total ban on weapons sales to this Middle Eastern country was introduced as early as last November.

Under these circumstances, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the armed struggle in Yemen won’t come to an end in the foreseeable future. But who is going to bear responsibility for this?

Of course, it’s important to recognize that there’s two separate conflicts unraveling in Yemen at the same time. The first is the internal struggle between the Houthis and the government recognized by Saudi Arabia, while the other one is nothing short of a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran.

However, this long and protracted conflict has already spawned a large number of various factions that would often fight against their former allies. On top of the “usual suspects” that can be found operating in most any country of the region, those are Al-Qaeda and ISIS, there’s now Southern separatist forces that were promised by the UAE that they would regain independence from North Yemen. This resulted in Abu Dhabi putting a total of sixty thousand militants on the payroll after arming them with US-made weapons. Those forces are deployed across those regions from where their fighters originate from, which has resulted in the formation of the so-called Shabwah elite unit, Hadhramaut elite unit and Aden defense force. With each region mobilizing its own fighters it’s safe to say that there’s going to be a lot of separatist sentiments across Yemen even when the Saudi aggression against this country is over.

There’s no arguing that back when Saudi Arabia was planning and anticipating this conflict, it had no intentions of getting stuck in Yemen for a total of five years fighting a resistance movement that managed to topple the government of Mansur Hadi. Even today, the Houthis remain in control of the absolute majority of large cities, as no amount of British, German and American-made weapons could allow Riyadh to establish control of the capital city of Yemen – the town of Sana’a.

The armed struggle in Yemen wasn’t provoked by religious differences or ethnic feud, the sole reason why Yemeni civilians keep dying today is Saudi Arabia’s diminishing oil reserves, as Yemen has a fair share of discovered but still undeveloped oil deposits. The icing on the cake for Riyadh is the ability to exercise control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait – the most important choke point along the oil transportation routes. With some 3.4 million barrels of oil a day passing through the “Gate of Tears”, it’s safe to say that anyone who controls Yemen will gain considerable leverage over its neighbors.

Yet, the only thing that Saudi Arabia managed to achieve so far through waging a war of attrition on Yemen is plunging it into the most dire humanitarian crisis of today. According to Yemen’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Najib al-Auj Yemen’s economy has already taken a 50 billion hit in both direct and indirect damage over the course of the hostilities. Back in 2014, analysts would draw the attention of the international community that Yemen’s economy slowed by 50%, with inflation going through the roof and food prices increasing by 112%. And things have got much worse these days…

However, the true scale and horror of this conflict becomes evident when we are to take a look at the official casualties figure, telling us that more than ten thousand people perished since the beginning of the hostilities, while three more million were displaced. Yet, the international community prefers to do nothing about the fact that the absolute majority of the victims of Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen is civilians.

According to last year’s report released by UNICEF, every ten minutes a child dies in Yemen from bombs, infection or malnutrition. Further still, one woman and six newborns die every two hour from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. No more than 51% off all the hospitals across Yemen is capable of providing every medical service a person may need, however, most of those are in dire need of medical personnel, equipment and drugs.

However, even if the actual resolution of the conflict is a long and windy path to take, we must realize that Yemen needs immediate assistance from the world. First of all, it needs humanitarian aid as millions of local citizens are running the risk of dying from starvation. Then, due to the difficult situation this country has found itself in, it need military assistance as Yemen has no real ways of combating the growing terrorist threat that may evolve into a major obstacle to international shipping in the Red Sea.

There’s no way for us to keep ignoring this conflict any further, as it’s an unknown variable that can lead to grave consequences for any of the international players that prefer to look the other way. But first and foremost, we must put an end to the horrible suffering of Yemeni people.

Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”