As the title indicates, the broadcast updates a number of points of inquiry and analysis concerning the Covid-19 outbreak. Of particular note in this context, is the fact that the CDC shut down the Army’s research facility at Ft. Detrick. In early August of 2019, shortly before the recorded start of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at that facility was closed down by the CDC due to multiple safety violations. “All research at a Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing material, such as Ebola, is on hold indefinitely after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the organization failed to meet biosafety standards. . . . The CDC sent a cease and desist order in July. After USAMRIID received the order from the CDC, its registration with the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees disease-causing material use and possession, was suspended. That suspension effectively halted all biological select agents and toxin research at USAMRIID . . . .”
Much of the program centers on an article from Global Research. It is Mr. Emory’s opinion that J. Kyle Bass’s comments (see above) and the State Department crackdown on Chinese media are related to some of the elements of discussion in this article. He had heard allegations for weeks that there was discussion in Chinese media about the virus having originated in the United States. Up until this article came to his attention, he had seen nothing to that effect.
NB: Although Western media and official treatment of Chinese media pronouncements on the coronavirus’s origin being in the U.S. will be dismissed as “fake news,” “propaganda,” etc., the speculation in a major Japanese TV broadcast and the analysis presented in a Taiwanese scientific video presentation are not easily dismissed as “Communist Chinese disinformation.” It is altogether dubious that major Japanese media or Taiwanese scientific presentation would carry water for the Chinese Communist Party.
The article raises a number of points of discussion and analysis, including:
1.–” . . . . A new study by Chinese researchers indicates the novel coronavirus may have begun human-to-human transmission in late November from a place other than the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan. The study published on ChinaXiv, a Chinese open repository for scientific researchers, reveals the new coronavirus was introduced to the seafood market from another location(s), and then spread rapidly from the market due to the large number of close contacts. . . .”
2.–” . . . . Chinese medical authorities – and “intelligence agencies” – then conducted a rapid and wide-ranging search for the origin of the virus, collecting nearly 100 samples of the genome from 12 different countries on 4 continents, identifying all the varieties and mutations. During this research, they determined the virus outbreak had begun much earlier, probably in November, shortly after the Wuhan Military Games. . . . ”
3.–” . . . . They then came to the same independent conclusions as the Japanese researchers – that the virus did not begin in China but was introduced there from the outside. China’s top respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan said on January 27. ‘Though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China.’ . . . .This of course raises questions as to the actual location of origin. If the authorities pursued their analysis through 100 genome samples from 12 countries, they must have had a compelling reason to be searching for the original source outside China. This would explain why there was such difficulty in locating and identifying a ‘patient zero’. . . .”
4.–” . . . . In February of 2020, the Japanese Asahi news report (print and TV) claimed the coronavirus originated in the US, not in China, and that some (or many) of the 14,000 American deaths attributed to influenza may have in fact have resulted from the coronavirus. (5) . . .”
5.–” . . . . The TV Asahi network presented scientific documentation for their claims, raising the issue that no one would know the cause of death because the US either neglected to test or failed to release the results. Japan avoided the questions of natural vs. man-made and accidental vs. deliberate, simply stating that the virus outbreak may first have occurred in the US. The Western Internet appears to have been scrubbed of this information, but the Chinese media still reference it. . . .”
6.–” . . . . Then, Taiwan ran a TV news program on February,27,(click here to access video (Chinese), that presented diagrams and flow charts suggesting the coronavirus originated in the US. (6) . . . .”
7.–” . . . . The man in the video is a top virologist and pharmacologist who performed a long and detailed search for the source of the virus. He spends the first part of the video explaining the various haplotypes (varieties, if you will), and explains how they are related to each other, how one must have come before another, and how one type derived from another. He explains this is merely elementary science and nothing to do with geopolitical issues, describing how, just as with numbers in order, 3 must always follow 2. . . .”
8.–” . . . . The basic logic is that the geographical location with the greatest diversity of virus strains must be the original source because a single strain cannot emerge from nothing. He demonstrated that only the US has all the five known strains of the virus (while Wuhan and most of China have only one, as do Taiwan and South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, Singapore, and England, Belgium and Germany), constituting a thesis that the haplotypes in other nations may have originated in the US. . . .”
9.–” . . . . With about 50 nations scattered throughout the world having identified at least one case at the time of writing, it would be very interesting to examine virus samples from each of those nations to determine their location of origin and the worldwide sources and patterns of spread. . . .”
10.–” . . . .The Taiwanese doctor then stated the virus outbreak began earlier than assumed, saying, ‘We must look to September of 2019’. He stated the case in September of 2019 where some Japanese traveled to Hawaii and returned home infected, people who had never been to China. This was two months prior to the infections in China and just after the CDC suddenly and totally shut down the Fort Detrick bio-weapons lab claiming the facilities were insufficient to prevent loss of pathogens. (10) (11) He said he personally investigated those cases very carefully (as did the Japanese virologists who came to the same conclusion).. This might indicate the coronavirus had already spread in the US but where the symptoms were being officially attributed to other diseases, and thus possibly masked. . . .”
11.–” . . . . On February 26, ABC News affiliate KJCT8 News Network reported that a woman recently told the media that her sister died on from coronavirus infection. Montrose, Colorado resident Almeta Stone said, ‘They (the medical staff) kept us informed that it was the flu, and when I got the death certificate, there was a coronavirus in the cause of death.’ . . .”
12.–” . . . . In the past two years (during the trade war) China has suffered several pandemics: A) February 15, 2018: H7N4 bird flu. Sickened at least 1,600 people in China and killed more than 600. Many chickens killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products. B)June, 2018: H7N9 bird flu. Many chickens killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products. C) August, 2018: outbreak of African swine flu. Same strain as Russia, from Georgia. Millions of pigs killed. China needs to purchase US pork products. D)May 24, 2019: massive infestation of armyworms in 14 province-level regions in China, which destroy most food crops. Quickly spread to more than 8,500 hectares of China’s grain production. They produce astonishing numbers of eggs. China needs to purchase US agricultural products – corn, soybeans. E) December, 2019: Coronavirus appearance puts China’s economy on hold. F) January, 2020: China is hit by a ‘highly pathogenic’ strain of bird flu in Hunan province. Many chickens died, many others killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products. . . .”
Program Highlights Include: Further discussion of the State Department’s crackdown on Chinese media outlets; Further discussion of Shincheonji–a South Korean cult that was apparently the vehicle for introducing the virus into that country and which has a branch in Wuhan China; the structural, operational and doctrinal overlap between Shincheonji and the Unificatin Church; Donald Rumsfeld’s position as chairman of the board of directors of Gilead Sciences–at the forefront of Big Pharma’s race to develop countermeasures to the Covid-19 and a major investment target for hedge funds; The presence on Gilead’s board of C. Benno Schmidt, Sr., who helped launch Richard Nixon’s War on Cancer–a cover for the NCI’s Special Viral Cancer Research Program.
Researchers found that levels of the Covid-19 virus increased soon after symptoms first appeared, with higher amounts in the nose than in the throats, which is also more consistent with influenza than SARS. Of the 18 patients they examined, one had moderate levels in their nose and throat but no symptoms–people who are asymptomatic can still potentially spread the virus. It’s this combination of airborne transmissions and asymptomatic patients who shed the virus that makes this a particularly infectious disease.
This anomalous new ability to infect the upper respiratory tract, of course, brings up the chilling experiments where researchers modified the H5N1 bird flu virus until it was capable of airborne transmissions between ferrets. That’s the same research that was banned by the NIH following the uproar but has subsequently been reallowed in early 2019. That original 2012 study specifically found that it was mutations that gave the virus the ability to infect the upper respiratory tracts of the ferrets that made it an airborne virus. We have yet to year if the SAR-CoV‑2 virus had the same or similar mutations to those that were induced in the H5N1 bird flu virus experiment but it seems likely.
The infectiousness of the SARS-CoV‑2 coronavirus is unprecedented based on this new study. As one immunologist put it, “This virus is clearly much more capable of spreading between humans than any other novel coronavirus we’ve ever seen. This is more akin to the spread of flu”.
In the context of the Covid-19’s flu-like ability to infect the upper respiratory tract, we explore experiments adapting the lethal H5N1 avian flu to ferrets. These experiments were halted in 2014 but subsequently resumed in 2017.
Might some of this experiment have been adapted to the Covid-19?
We explore additional experiments adapting the lethal H5N1 avian flu to ferrets. These experiments were halted in 2014 but subsequently resumed in 2017.
Might some of this experiment have been adapted to the Covid-19?
These experiments were resumed, shortly before the outbreak of Covid-19. Again, might some of the results of the adaptation of the H5N1 avian flu to ferrets have figured in the Covid-19 phenomenon?
Note that many experts were critical of the process.
A report on the adaptation of the A/H5N1 to ferrets notes that Oseltamivir–marketed under the brand-name Tamiflu–was successful in treating the ferrets. That is one of the anti-virals in a drug cocktail used by Thai doctors to successfully treat a Covid-19 sufferer.
In FTR#55, we noted in 1997 that U.S. Army researchers had successfully recovered genetic material from the 1918 influenza epidemic.
As will be seen in future programs, one of the variants of the Covid-19 does indeed behave like the 1918 flu virus. As we will also see in future programs, that virus was resurrected by researchers in 2005.
In the past, we have heard it alleged by credible sources that Germany was behind the 1918 flu epidemic that killed scores of millions worldwide.
From Germany Watch comes another post reinforcing this line of inquiry.
After maintaining that German agents were sabotaging livestock with anthrax, the post discusses British intelligence distillate indicating that, after discovering the particular strain of virulent flu, German agents began deliberately spreading it in the U.S.
NB: We don’t feel that the information from the book Three Wars with Germany confirms the hypothesis that the flu pandemic was a German bio-warfare weapon gone awry beyond the point of debate. It DOES, however, highlight that possibility.
We then tackle the subject of a cult/church that is at the epicenter of a Covid-19 outbreak in South Korea. The overlap between this organization and the Unification Church is discussed in a Food For Thought post. Might this cult have been a vector for introducing the virus into Wuhan?
The fascistic nature of the cult and some of the rituals and beliefs of the organization would render the group and/or some of its members as viable “useful idiots” for manipulation in connection with this outbreak.
The next two points of discussion concern the fact that the current U.S. Ambassador to South Korea was the former head of the United States Pacific Command. We wonder if he might be ONI and/or CIA, and if he might have any connection to the anti-China blitzkrieg and the Covid-19 outbreak?
As the former Commander of the Guantanamo base in Cuba, Admiral Harris certainly did have operational links with the intelligence community.
In our ongoing series about the Covid-19 breakout and the Chinese winter, we have discussed the damage the breakout has done to the Chinese economy, our belief that the outbreak is part of a destabilization effort against China, and the investments of Steve Bannon associate J. Kyle Bass and, in turn, Bass’s political association and probable co-investment position with Trump associate Tommy Hicks, Jr.
Positioned to profit as a result of a Chinese economic downturn, Bass and Hicks may well be profiting from China’s economic problems, which are growing more severe as a result of the outbreak.
Now, many Chinese firms say they cannot pay their workers their full salaries–a development that will further strain the Chinese economy.
NB: With the economic consequences of the outbreak spreading globally, Bass, Hicks et al would not necessarily have to be invested in Chinese equities to profit enormously from this event.
New bank loans in China hit a record high in January, reflecting the growing need for cash to keep the businesses operating and employees paid. The PBOC, China’s central bank, also cut its benchmark lending rate today as part of a push to ease the financing costs for business. As the article notes, small and rural banks are most at risk–a stress test last year by the PBOC found that 13 percent of banks were considered “high risk”.
As noted below, Tommy Hicks brought in J. Kyle Bass to lecture to interagency government networks about China’s banking system.
We review the fact that Bass is close to, and may well be a co-investor with, Tommy Hicks Jr., a key member of Team Trump. Hicks, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and national security officials are, in turn, working to deny Chinese electronics firm Huawei access to developing 5G networks, further hamstringing the Chinese economy.
Paul Krugman, among others, has noted that Wilbur Ross was openly celebrating the coronavirus as a boon to the United States.
We highlight key aspects of this discussion:
1.–Hicks is not a government official but has access to high-level governmental process, including (apparently) CIA activities. ” . . . . Tommy Hicks Jr., 41, isn’t a government official; he’s a wealthy private investor. And he has been a part of discussions related to China and technology with top officials from the Treasury Department, National Security Council, Commerce Department and others, according to emails and documents obtained by ProPublica. In one email, Hicks refers to a meeting at ‘Langley,’ an apparent reference to the CIA’s headquarters. . . .”
2.–Hicks has used his position to arrange for J. Kyle Bass to network with government agencies and officials. Bear in mind that Bass is positioned to benefit from a downturn in China’s economy. ” . . . . Hicks used his connections to arrange for a hedge fund manager friend, Kyle Bass — who has $143 million in investments that will pay off if China’s economy tanks — to present his views on the Chinese economy to high-level government officials at an interagency meeting at the Treasury Department, according to the documents. . . .”
3.–Hicks and Bass have invested together since 2011. ” . . . . Bass presented his views on China’s banking system in the office of Heath Tarbert, an assistant secretary at Treasury in charge of international markets and investment policy and a powerful intergovernmental committee that reviews foreign investments in the U.S. for national security concerns. Among the officials at the meeting with Tarbert were Bill Hinman, the director of the division of corporation finance at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Ray Washburne, a wealthy Dallas restaurant owner and family friend of Hicks’ who was nominated by Trump to head the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Hicks and Bass, both Dallas residents and longtime denizens of the financial community there, have invested together since at least 2011, according to securities filings and court records. . . .”
4.–Hicks did not deny that he participated in Bass’s funds, but was evasive.” . . . . But it’s not clear if Hicks or his family have an investment in Bass’ China-related funds. Reached twice on his cellphone, Hicks declined to be interviewed by ProPublica. In the second call, in June, Hicks didn’t dispute that he and his family have invested in Bass’ funds. But when asked to detail their business relationship, he cut the conversation short. . . . ”
5.–Bass has a history of betting against trends that will turn downward, having made his fortune on the 2008 crash. ” . . . . Bass, who made his name and fortune by betting against subprime mortgages before the crash and is known for large bets that economies or certain macro trends will turn downward, declined to comment. . . .”
6.–Official review did not examine possible business relationships between Hicks and Bass. ” . . . . An administration official briefed on the Bass meeting at the Treasury downplayed it as ‘strictly a listening session.’ . . . . He acknowledged that the review didn’t include an examination of any financial relationship between Hicks and Bass. . . .”
7.–Bass is positioned to maintain “massive asymmetry” to down turns in Hong Kong and China, in other words, he will benefit if they go down. ” . . . . Bass has become a vocal advocate for an aggressive U.S. policy toward China. On Twitter and on cable business channels he’s denounced everything from the country’s Communist Party government to its business practices. Securities filings show Bass raised $143 million from about 81 investors in two funds — investments that would benefit if China’s currency were devalued or the country faced credit or banking crises. In April, in a letter to his investors, Bass wrote that his company, Hayman Capital Management, was positioned for coming problems in Hong Kong and was set up to ‘maintain a massive asymmetry to a negative outcome in Hong Kong and/or China.’ . . . ”
Next, we turn to discussion of the possible manipulation of the virus to make it communicable through airborne transmission, similar to the transmission of influenza.
Researchers found that levels of the virus increased soon after symptoms first appeared, with higher amounts in the nose than in the throats–more consistent with influenza than SARS. Of the 18 patients they examined, one had moderate levels in their nose and throat but no symptoms. People who are asymptomatic can still spread the virus. It’s this combination of airborne transmission and asymptomatic patients who are still shedding the virus that makes this a particularly infectious disease.
This sudden anomalous (for SARS-like coronaviruses) new ability to infect the upper respiratory tract, of course, brings up chilling experiments in which researchers modified the H5N1 bird flu virus to become capable of airborne transmissions between ferrets. That research was banned by the NIH following public outcry but resumed in early 2019. The original 2012 study specifically found that it was the genetically engineered mutations that gave the virus the ability to infect the upper respiratory tracts of the ferrets. We have yet to hear if the SAR-CoV‑2 virus had the same or similar mutations to those that were induced in the H5N1 bird flu virus experiment but it seems likely.
Thus, the infectiousness of the SARS-CoV‑2 coronavirus is unprecedented based on this new study. As one immunologist put it, “This virus is clearly much more capable of spreading between humans than any other novel coronavirus we’ve ever seen. This is more akin to the spread of flu”.
The virus can also be spread through human fecal material from an infected person.
Yet another speculative element of discussion concerns a cult/church in South Korea which is the epicenter of a burst of cases in that country. A reputed presence of a branch of the organization is in Wuhan, which has directed discussion in the direction of the virus having migrated from Hubei province to South Korea.
Against the background of Unification Church activity during the Cold War, in connection with CIA, in connection with the fascist power elite in Japan that is continuous with that country’s activities during World War II, we wonder about the possibility of the use of this cult as a vectoring agent.
Might it be possible that it was used to introduce the virus into China in the first place?
As will be highlighted in future programs, there appear to be operational/networking links between the Shincheonji and the Unification Church, as well as doctrinal similarities.
A speculative element of discussion concerns a cult/church in South Korea which is the epicenter of a burst of coronavirus cases in that country. A reputed presence of a branch of the organization is in Wuhan, which has directed discussion in the direction of the virus having migrated from Hubei province to South Korea. Might it be possible that it was used to introduce the virus into China in the first place? “. . . . Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the authorities were investigating reports that Shincheonji had operations in Hubei, the Chinese province that includes Wuhan, where the virus emerged. The South Korean news agency Newsis reported on Friday that Shincheonji had opened a church in Wuhan last year, and that references to it had been removed from the church’s website. Church officials could not immediately be reached for comment. . . .” The Shincheonji organization appears to overlap the Unification Church. In addition to networking between elements of both organizations, the Shincheonji Church has many doctrinal similarities to the Moon organization. Most important of these points of overlap between the organizations is the position and influence of Kim Kun-Nam in Shincheonji: ” . . . . Kim Kun-nam, one of the two authors of Shintan, which can be called the first doctrine of Shincheonji, is from the Unification Church. Kim also served as a lecturer in the Unification Church. It is no exaggeration to say that Shincheonji doctrine developed on the basis of what Kim made. . . .”
These programs highlight features of an apparent coup d’etat in Bolivia, emphasizing the individuals and institutions figuring in the coup itself, as well as the underlying dynamic of the development of Bolivia’s enormous lithium reserves. Central to the discussion is the fact that lithium is essential for the development of electric car batteries and that technology is important to any successful “Greening” of the global economy.
Fascists from Latin America and Europe networked with transnational corporate elements and some U.S. intelligence cut-outs to oust Evo Morales and his government.
Although Morales had violated constitutional norms on term limits in order to extend his governance, his political agenda had greatly benefited Bolivia’s poor and its historically oppressed indigenous population, in particular. The country’s mineral wealth has been exploited by foreign companies and select members of the Bolivian elite to the detriment of much of the population. Even the conservative “Financial Times” has noted that Morales restructuring of the Bolivian economy–mineral extraction, in particular–has significantly improved the country’s economy and reduced poverty.
This element of discussion involves many subjects covered at length over the decades and featured in the archives:
1.–Material about Klaus Barbie and the European fascists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bridegrooms of Death”) mercenaries can be found in, among other programs, AFA #‘s 19 and 27.
2.–The Vatican’s relationship to fascism, including Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croatia, is highlighted in, among other programs AFA #17.
3.–Information about the re-emergence of the Ustachi can be found in, among other programs, FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.
Key individual and institutional players in the development of, prelude to, and execution of the Bolivian coup include:
1.–Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
2.–He is heir to a tradition of wealth, the nation’s natural gas business, in particular: : ” . . . . Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. . . .”
3.–Prior to the coup, Camacho: ” . . . . met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted gratitude: ‘Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
4.–A marginal figure with little public gravitas, including on social media, Camacho was moving to neutralize the Morales government before the coup itself. His political presence and base of support is a Christian fascist organization: ” . . . . Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. . . .”
5.–The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC members as ‘racist’ and ‘militant,’ noting that they ‘have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.’ . . .”
6.–Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croatian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
7.–Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a secessionist movement for the Santa Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the committee as an ‘actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.’ In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. . . .”
8.–There has been speculation that Marinkovich may be descended from Croatian Ustachis fascists: ” . . . . But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the ‘shadow CIA,’ produced a rough background profile on Marinkovic, speculating, ‘Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.’ . . . .”
9.–Marinkovich’s activism in the Santa Cruz area is part of a fascist political landscape in that area that dovetails with Klaus Barbie (of whom we spoke in–among other programs–AFA #19): ” . . . . In a 2008 profile on Marinkovic, “The New York Times” acknowledged the extremist undercurrents of the Santa Cruz separatist movement the oligarch presided over. It described the area as ‘a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the former Spanish dictator Franco.” The Bolivian Socialist Falange was a fascist group that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie during the Cold War. A former Gestapo torture expert, Barbie was repurposed by the CIA through its Operation Condor program to help exterminate communism across the continent. . . .”
10.–The coup follows by some years an attempt by a group of international fascists to murder Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. . . .”
11.–Eduardo Rosza-Flores had fought in the former Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ultimately came to power: ” . . . . During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the ‘PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups, from Germany to Ireland.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. . . .”
12.–Rosza-Flores had no money, yet his group of would-be fascist assassins were well funded. Marinkovic appears to have been among the funding sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was subsequently charged with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. . . .”
13.–Hugo Acha Melgar was networked with the Human Rights Foundation, a right-wing organization with strong links to U.S. intelligence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foundation is involved in the Hong Kong turmoil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. . . . . He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America. . . .”
14.–Proxy presidential candidate Carlos Mesa is heavily networked with the Inter-American Dialogue, financed in considerable measure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID) . . . .”
Central to the multi-national dissatisfaction with Evo Morales is his nationalization of some of Bolivia’s mineral resource industry. And central to the Bolivian mineral resource inventory is lithium, essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries: ” . . . . The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car. . . .”
Bolivia has been reported to hold up to 70 percent of the world’s lithium, and the Morales government’s pivot toward developing those reserves in tandem with Chinese firms, rather than Western transnationals, may well have been the central dynamic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash. . . .”
The complexities of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats–location of much of Bolivia’s lithium reserves–mandate the technological involvement of foreign firms. A deal reached with German ACI Systems (heavily subsidized by the German government) was negated by protests on the part of local residents in the Salar de Uyuni area. Chinese firms were poised to fill that vacuum, offering the possibility of a more equitable development of the mineral. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. . . .”
After the ouster of Morales, the value of Tesla’s stock increased dramatically.
The ACI/Bolivia deal had heavy backing by the German government and featured the planned export of lithium to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. . . . Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany. . . .”
Of particular significance for the discussion to follow is ” . . . . China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”
Shortly after the ouster of Morales, Tesla announced that Tesla would locate a new car and electric battery factory near Berlin. If the ACI lithium development project in Bolivia is resuscitated, the Tesla move will give the firm access to the Bolivian lithium.
Might that have been the reason for the rise in Tesla’s stock? Might there have been some insider trading?
The programs conclude with review of the rebirth of Cambridge Analytica as a synthesis with British “psy-op” development firm SCL. A key director of Emerdata–the new firm–is a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Blackwater chief Erik Prince, the brother of Trump Secretary of Education Betsy de Vos. Noting the firm formerly known as Blackwater’s deep involvement in the world of covert operations and former Cambridge Analytica lynchpin Steve Bannon’s pivotal role in the anti-China movement, it is not unreasonable to ask if Emerdata may be involved in the Hong Kong turmoil.
We also review China’s leadership in the development of Green technologies.
In our last post, we highlighted the 1951 “Peace” Treaty between the Allies and Japan, an agreement which falsely maintained that Japan had not stolen any wealth from the nations it occupied during World War II and that the (already) booming nation was bankrupt and would not be able to pay reparations to the slave laborers and “comfort women” it had pressed into service during the conflict. In the context of the fantastic sums looted by Japan under the auspices of Golden Lily and the incorporation of that wealth with Nazi Gold to form the Black Eagle Trust, that 1951 treaty and the advent of the Korean War raise some interesting, unresolved questions. One of the principal figures in the looting of occupied Asia during World War II was the remarkable Kodama Yoshio. Networked with the powerful Yakuza Japanese organized crime milieu, the Black Dragon society (the most powerful of the patriotic and ultra-nationalist societies), the Imperial Japanese military and the Royal family of Emperor Hirohito, Kodama looted the Chinese underworld and trafficked in narcotics with Chiang Kai-shek’s fascist narco-dictatorship. We can but wonder about Kodama Yoshio’s presence along with 1951 “Peace” Treaty author John Foster Dulles at negotiations in Seoul on the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War. ” . . . . In October of 1949, the People’s Republic of China came into being. Eight months later, in June of 1950, the Korean War broke out. Just before the war began, Kodama [Yoshio] accompanied John Foster Dulles to negotiations in Seoul. The Dulles party also included Kodama’s protege Machii Hisayuki, boss of the Korean yakuza in Japan. Efforts to discover under Freedom of Information what Kodama and Machii did during the trip with Dulles have run into a stone wall. In the MacArthur Memorial archive we discovered a personal letter from Kodama to General MacArthur offering to provide thousands of yakuza and former Japanese Army soldiers to fight alongside American soldiers in Korea. According to sources in Korea and Japan, the offer was accepted and these men joined the Allied force on the Peninsula, posing as Korean soldiers. . . . ”
In numerous programs, we have discussed Kodama Yoshio, one of Japan’s premier organized crime bosses, who was head of the Kodama Agency, charged with procuring materials for Japan’s Imperial Naval Air Force. Kodama was aided in his efforts by General Tai Li, Chiang Kai-shek’s chief of intelligence, who swapped key raw materials for narcotics to back the Kuomintang narco-dictatorship. ” . . . . Officially, Kodama was in Shanghai as a buyer for the Imperial Navy Air Force, under the rubric of the Kodama Kikan, or Kodama Agency. (Special Service Units were named after the officer in charge and then called an agency.) On paper, his mission was to locate and acquire supplies of copper, cobalt, nickel and mica. In most cases, he bought these directly from KMT secret police chief General Tai Li, who was paid in heroin. . . . Because the Strike South would involve Japan’s navy, and the navy would administer the Malay Archipelago through which [Golden Lily] treasure ships must pass, Kodama was transferred overnight from the army to the navy, and given the rank of rear admiral. This was like making Al Capone a U.S. Navy admiral. . . . Kodama returned to Shanghai just in time for Pearl Harbor. . . .”
Having been born in 1949, I grew up with World War II as a critical element of my political, civic and cognitive upbringing. I vividly remember watching the documentary “Victory at Sea” on television as a child. As I have grown older, more knowledgeable and wiser, learning the truth about World War II has been very sad and painful. In FTR #1095, we noted the historical background to the ongoing conflict with China–the brutal Japanese onslaught and the collaboration of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang narco-dictatorship with Japan’s attack and occupation. As a boy, I was awed and moved by the heroism of American and Allied service personnel who braved the dangers of flying over the Hump to bring U.S. supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. Although officially allied with the U.S., Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were actually working “both sides of the street.” We have encountered nothing more grotesquely tragic and disillusioning than the awareness that American military supplies flown over the Hump and/or sent along the Burma Road found their way into the hands of the Japanese, courtesy of KMT general Ku Chu-tung and his organized crime brother. Collaborating with Kodama Yoshio, the Japanese crime boss and Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the brothers swapped U.S. lend lease supplies for drugs.
The program begins with an excerpt of AFA #37 (from the fall of 1992), dealing with the destabilization of the U.S.S.R. Relying on articles from Covert Action Information Bulletin #35, by Doug Henwood and Sean Gervasi, the program reviews both NSC 68 and what Gervasi terms “the full court press” strategy that was its ultimate fulfillment.
Using political action focused on promoting fractious nationalism among targeted ethnicities within the targeted nation and economic and diplomatic pressure to weaken that country, the strategy worked very well with the Soviet Union.
It is Mr. Emory’s considered opinion that the same strategy is being applied to China. Whether that strategy will be successful remains to be seen.
Next, we note the role of the National Endowment for Democracy (an example of Orwellian Newspeak if ever there was one) in continuing our examination of the turmoil in Hong Kong. NED was deeply involved in the destabilization of the U.S.S.R. We examined NED’s role in projecting Nazi and fascist elements back into Lithuania in AFA #37, as well as FTR #858.
In this article we note: the involvement of the NED with the leading individuals and institutions involved with the turmoil in Hong Kong; the networking between other U.S. “soft-power” intelligence fronts with the Hong Kong activists; U.S. “Alt-right” involvement with the Hong Kong unrest; the meeting of a U.S. diplomat with Hong Kong activists; the networking between top Trump administration officials and the Hong Kong activists; the use of anti-Chinese slurs dating to the fighting between Japan and China prior to, and during, World War II; the use of what–if it were used by people acting in the U.S.–rioting and terrorism by the crowds in Hong Kong; the violence used in Hong Kong includes throwing gasoline bombs at the police, setting fire to subway stations, attacking passers-by and assaulting counter-protesters.
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