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Kim Jong-un acknowledges 'grim situation' facing North Korea's economy


Reuters
Mon, 11 Oct 2021 12:56 UTC
Kim Jong-un
© Reuters/KCNA
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un •ˆPeople's Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Korea
Kim Jong-un urged officials to focus on improving citizens' lives in the face of a "grim" economic situation, state media reported on Monday, as he marked the anniversary of the country's ruling party.

Art performances, galas, and a fireworks show were held in Pyongyang to celebrate the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea on Sunday, but no large military parade, which are sometimes held on such occasions, was reported.

North Korea's economy has been battered by years of sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes, and heavy rains and floods have also taken a toll. The country's most vulnerable risk starvation after it slipped deeper into self-imposed isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the worsening humanitarian situation could turn into a crisis, a UN rights investigator said in report seen by Reuters last week.

The country faces "huge tasks for adjusting and developing the state economy" and accomplishing the economic goals established in recent party and government meetings, Kim said in a speech, according to state news agency KCNA. Making no mention of the political standoff over its nuclear weapons, he said:
"The only way for dynamically pushing forward the unprecedented crucial work despite grim situation is for the entire Party to get united." Officials "should not wish for privilege and preferential treatment, should always consider whether their work infringe upon the interests of the people or cause trouble to the people."
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Footprints

Washington and Moscow drop some tit-for-tat sanctions to allow blacklisted Victoria 'f**k the EU' Nuland enter Russia for talks


RT
Sun, 10 Oct 2021 21:16 UTC
Victoria Nuland
© Reuters Yiannis Kourtoglou
Victoria Nuland
Moscow has lifted sanctions on Victoria Nuland, allowing the US undersecretary of state to enter the country for a summit with her Russian counterparts. The US is said to have dropped sanctions on a Russian diplomat in exchange.

Nuland is expected to visit Moscow on Monday, where she will take part in three days of meetings with officials at the Russian Foreign Ministry. However, up until Sunday, Nuland was forbidden from entering Russia.

"She was actually on our sanctions lists that mean that a person cannot cross the border," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russia-1 channel on Sunday.
"She was actually on our sanctions lists that mean that a person cannot cross the border. [The US] included Russian representatives and foreign policy experts on their sanctions lists. So in this case, the question was resolved on a parity basis. Yes, she will be in Russia,"
The US reportedly initiated the summit.

Comment: Victoria Nuland and hubby Robert Kagan champion neocon manipulations at home and abroad. That Biden gives such a faction power and influence adds two more black marks to his corrosive and dim-witted administration.

See also:

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Dominoes

Austria's new chancellor takes the reins of power


Independent.ie
Mon, 11 Oct 2021 11:49 UTC
Schallenberg
© Lisa Leutner/AP.
The new Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg
Austria's new chancellor has taken the reins of power, two days after Sebastian Kurz resigned amid corruption allegations.

Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen swore in Alexander Schallenberg, currently the foreign minister, as chancellor. Career diplomat Michael Linhart became the country's new foreign minister, Austrian news agency APA reported.

Mr Kurz, 35, announced on Saturday that he would step aside to defuse a political crisis triggered by prosecutors' announcement that he is one of the targets of an investigation into suspected bribery and breach of trust. The conservative Mr Kurz's junior coalition partners, the Greens, had demanded his replacement. Mr Kurz denies any wrongdoing.

Mr Kurz and his close associates are accused of trying to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly media reports, financed with public money.

Mr Kurz became the leader of his Austrian People's Party and then chancellor in 2017.

Comment: See also:
Austrian prosecutors target Kurz in bribery investigation

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Dollar

Moderna founders debut on Forbes' list of 400 richest Americans

Will Feuer
New York Post
Thu, 07 Oct 2021 20:04 UTC
Moderna chairman Noubar Afeyan
© Getty Images for Aurora Humanita
Moderna chairman Noubar Afeyan, whose estimated net worth is $3.7 billion, is ranked 212 on the Forbes' 400 list in 2021.
The success of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine has minted three new billionaires who had early stakes in the biotech startup, leading to their debut on this year's Forbes list of the 400 richest people in the US.

Moderna co-founder and chairman Noubar Afeyan along with fellow co-founder and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Robert Langer both made the list, with estimated net worths of $3.7 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively.

Timothy Springer, a Harvard Medical School professor and early Moderna investor, also debuted on the list with a net worth of $4.4 billion, according to Forbes.

Since Moderna became the second company to win an emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, more than 152.3 million doses have been administered, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The company has previously said it expects to make at least $19.2 billion in sales of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna's successful development of the vaccine propelled it out of the world of biotech startup obscurity and landed huge gains for shareholders.

The stock has fallen off its peak in recent weeks, but it's still up more than 189 percent since Jan. 1, and over 300 percent higher compared with a year ago.

Since its initial public offering at $22 per share in 2018, the company's stock is up more than 1,200 percent. It was last seen trading at $297.50 a share.

Comment: It's a tough job putting self-interest above public health (all in the name of public health), but somebody's gotta do it.

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Robot

Pentagon's former software chief admits 'it's already over': US has lost AI battle to China


RT
Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:35 UTC
china lead ai artificial intelligence race US loses
© Reuters / Tyrone Siu
Humanoid robot Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, paints on a plastic plate in Hong Kong, China
China is going to dominate the world through its advances in AI and other emerging technologies, and the US has already missed out on a chance to prevent it, the Pentagon's recently resigned software chief has said.

"We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it's already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion," Nicolas Chaillan told the Financial Times in his first interview since his shock resignation last month.

Chaillan, who was the first chief software officer for the US Air Force and oversaw the Pentagon's efforts to boost cybersecurity over the past three years, announced his resignation in September in protest against the sluggish pace of technological progress in the American military.

Comment: China has indeed been busy in the AI field, with the apparent goal of turning over many tasks to AI. One wonders though, if relinquishing that much control will not bite them in the end? There would have been no lack of warnings.

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Cult

Globalist puppet BoJo brown-noses WEF's 'build back better' insanity

James Delingpole
Breitbart
Thu, 07 Oct 2021 17:40 UTC
Boris Johnson build back better
© Getty Images
Boris Johnson
I've seen some nauseating sights in my time - flyblown corpses, regurgitated kebab on student drinking nights, any show involving Piers Morgan - but rarely have I seen anything more emetic than delegates rising to applaud Prime Minister Boris Johnson's closing speech at the Conservative Party Conference.

Sure, if Bojo had just been addressing a meeting of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet or, worse, the Green Party, or, worst of all, the World Economic Forum I could understand the enthusiasm.

But a meeting of the supposed 'Conservative' party of the United Kingdom? Really?? I'd say there was more conservatism in Stalin's right testicle than there was in the farrago of eco-socialistic, globalist bilge spouted by the utterly useless Johnson.

Comment: Boris is just broadcasting his bona fides to the real elite, in the possibility he'll be included in the (hoped for) division of the spoils.

'Empire 2.0 fantasy': Boris Johnson pens G7 article on post-Covid world, draws flak for 'hypocrisy' and 'undermining democracy'

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Cult

Mali PM: 'French military is CREATING terrorists, not fighting them, and they now occupy two-thirds of our country'


RT
Mon, 11 Oct 2021 12:40 UTC
operation barkhane mali french

A French military helicopter over the Nigerien town Madama, which serves as a 'forward operating base' [terror recruitment site] for the French, Niger and Chad armies
Militant groups in northern Mali's Kidal region have been trained by French officers, Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga claimed in an interview with RIA Novosti, saying two-thirds of his country is "occupied by terrorists."

Mali has evidence that French forces present in its territory with a mission to counter terrorist groups have been instead "training" militants, the transitional government's prime minister told Russia's RIA news agency on Friday. According to the Malian official, France now controls an enclave in Kidal, with Mali having no access there.


Comment: See the eastern pockets of Syria for another current example of a Western country's military 'jointly occupying' resource-rich MENA countries with ISIS and assorted Islamic terrorist proxy forces.


"They have militant groups there, who have been trained by French officers. We have evidence of that. There is an expression in our language, saying that when you are looking for a needle in your room and someone, said to be helping you in the search, is standing on that needle, you will never find it. So this is the situation happening now in Mali, and we don't want to bear with it," Maiga said.

Comment: That's your 'colonialism' right there. Not 'China invading Taiwan', or 'Russia invading Crimea'.

And the French government knows it, recently telling the Russian FM to 'butt out of OUR country [Mali]...'

The US, UK, Israel and France have been doing the same thing throughout the 'War on Terror' - they're SPREADING terrorism to justify military intervention and occupation... BY THEM.

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Bizarro Earth

New World Disorder: What is the Global Public-Private Partnership?

Iain Davis
In This Together
Wed, 06 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
What Is the Global Public-Private Partnership
The Global Public-Private Partnership (GPPP) is a world-wide network of stakeholder capitalists and their partners. This collective of stakeholders (the capitalists and their partners) comprises of global corporations (including central banks), philanthropic foundations (multi-billionaire philanthropists), policy think-tanks, governments (and their agencies), non-governmental organisations, selected academic & scientific institutions, global charities, the labour unions and other chosen "thought leaders."

The GPPP controls global finance and the world's economy. It sets world, national and local policy (via global governance) and then promotes those policies using the mainstream media (MSM) corporations who are also "partners" within the GPPP.

Often those policies are devised by the think-tanks before being adopted by governments, who are also GPPP partners. Government is the process of transforming GPPP global governance into hard policy, legislation and law.

Under our current model of Westphalian national sovereignty, the government of one nation cannot make legislation or law in another. However, through global governance, the GPPP create policy initiatives at the global level which then cascade down to people in every nation. This typically occurs via an intermediary policy distributor, such as the IMF or IPCC, and national government then enact the recommended policies.

The policy trajectory is set internationally by the authorised definition of problems and their prescribed solutions. Once the GPPP enforce the consensus internationally, the policy framework is set. The GPPP stakeholder partners then collaborate to ensure the desired policies are developed, implemented and enforced. This is the oft quoted "international rules based system."

In this way the GPPP control many nations at once without having to resort to legislation. This has the added advantage of making any legal challenge to the decisions made by the most senior partners in the GPPP (it is an authoritarian hierarchy) extremely difficult.
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Pirates

'I saw Afghan president escape with millions', ex-chief bodyguard who was left behind claims

Richard Pendlebury
Daily Mail
Mon, 11 Oct 2021 22:38 UTC
Ghani

Until a few weeks ago he was in charge of the day-to-day security of President Ashraf Ghani (pictured), who — as head of state — was the personification, in theory at least, of the West's efforts to secure a democratic, pluralistic Afghanistan
Cross-legged in the half-light, on a threadbare rug covering an otherwise bare concrete floor, the general of the presidential palace guard is no longer in his natural environment.

He is surrounded by large, white bags of rice, plastic buckets, dusty kettles, empty bird cages, power tools, broken machinery and other items of bric-a-brac to be found in the cellar of a modest Afghan home in a shabby neighbourhood. Such as this one.

Brigadier General Piraz Ata Sharifi is a huge man. Perhaps 20st: moon-faced and shaven-headed. In other words, he's distinctive.

Comment: It's unsurprising that a significant number of Afghans were eager to be rid Ghani and his ilk and were instead willing to take their chances with the Taliban:

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Brain

Behind NATO's 'cognitive warfare': 'Battle for your brain' waged by Western militaries

Ben Norton
The Grayzone
Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
Cog brain
© Unknown
Western governments in the NATO military alliance are developing tactics of "cognitive warfare," using the supposed threats of China and Russia to justify waging a "battle for your brain" in the "human domain," to "make everyone a weapon."

NATO is developing new forms of warfare to wage a "battle for the brain," as the military alliance put it.

The US-led NATO military cartel has tested novel modes of hybrid warfare against its self-declared adversaries, including economic warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare, and psychological warfare.

Now, NATO is spinning out an entirely new kind of combat it has branded cognitive warfare. Described as the "weaponization of brain sciences," the new method involves "hacking the individual" by exploiting "the vulnerabilities of the human brain" in order to implement more sophisticated "social engineering."

Until recently, NATO had divided war into five different operational domains: air, land, sea, space, and cyber. But with its development of cognitive warfare strategies, the military alliance is discussing a new, sixth level: the "human domain."

A 2020 NATO-sponsored study of this new form of warfare clearly explained:"While actions taken in the five domains are executed in order to have an effect on the human domain, cognitive warfare's objective is to make everyone a weapon." The report stressed:
"The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century. Humans are the contested domain. Future conflicts will likely occur amongst the people digitally first and physically thereafter in proximity to hubs of political and economic power."

Comment: Literally a 'Mind Blower'. Consider how useful the COVID 'authoritarian followers experiment' and global 'vaccine protocol' has become!

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