Meridian –
Maritime
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance
From
October 12, 2022 to April 15, 2023, Meridian will
appear as a reduced summer edition
Reports
are only sporadic during this period
20230228-902
US State Department explains cutting ties with Soros-funded group
US taxpayers were funding an
effort to blacklist conservative news sites, according to research by the
Washington Examiner. The US State Department said on Tuesday that it has pulled
funding from the George Soros-backed Global Disinformation Index (GDI), after
it was revealed that the organization was working to deprive conservative media
outlets of advertising revenue. GDI is a UK-based nonprofit that describes its
mission as “disrupting the business of disinformation.” It does this by
compiling lists of “high-risk” news and information outlets – predominantly
right-leaning and anti-liberal – and passing these on to advertisers, which in
turn refuse to run ads on the sites. According to a recent investigation by the
Washington Examiner, GDI received more than $200,000 from the National Endowment
for Democracy and around $100,000 from the Global Engagement Center, both
entities of the US State Department. The funding is in addition to undisclosed
amounts from billionaire financier Soros and the UK Foreign Office, both of
which are listed as donors on its website. GDI’s ‘dynamic exclusion list’
features more than 2,000 websites, and the organization’s CEO, Clare Melford, claims that the blacklisting has “had a
significant impact on the advertising revenue of these sites.” When GDI
analyzed American news sites for potential targeting, Republican lawmakers were
outraged to discover that conservative and libertarian sites were considered
the “ten riskiest online news sources,” and demanded that the State Department
pull its funding...
20230227-901
The Navy’s New Ship Can Run Without Humans for 30 Straight Days
The U.S. Navy has received a
prototype ship that can operate autonomously at sea for up to 30 days. The
337-foot USNS Apalachicola will be the Navy’s largest-ever self-running craft.
It’s part of a growing wave of drone planes and ships that could transform
combat in the coming decades. With its shallow-hulled design, the Apalachicola
is speedy and can maneuver where other ships can’t. The boat has a maximum
speed of 40 knots, a maximum payload capacity of 544 metric tons, and a draft
of 12.5 feet. The vessel can carry humans or be used as an uncrewed missile
platform, anti-submarine weapons platform, radar, sensor craft, or drone
mothership. Manufacturer Austral says the Apalachicola has an automated
in-house designed machinery control system (MCS), which allows the ship to be
minimally crewed by centralizing machinery operations to the bridge. The vessel
can support V-22 Osprey flight operations and launch and recover rigid
inflatable boats…
20230221-900
COVID UPDATE: What is the truth?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/?mc_cid=01f5cacb24&mc_eid=2d0be71d8d
The COVID-19 pandemic is one of
the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by
official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical
associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies.[3,6,57] We
have witnessed a long list of unprecedented intrusions into medical practice,
including attacks on medical experts, destruction of medical careers among
doctors refusing to participate in killing their patients and a massive
regimentation of health care, led by non-qualified individuals with enormous
wealth, power and influence.
For the first time in American
history a president, governors, mayors, hospital administrators and federal
bureaucrats are determining medical treatments based not on accurate
scientifically based or even experience based information, but rather to force
the acceptance of special forms of care and “prevention”—including remdesivir,
use of respirators and ultimately a series of essentially untested messenger
RNA vaccines. For the first time in history medical treatment, protocols are
not being formulated based on the experience of the physicians treating the largest
number of patients successfully, but rather individuals and bureaucracies that
have never treated a single patient—including Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, EcoHealth Alliance, the CDC, WHO, state public health
officers and hospital administrators.[23,38]
The media (TV, newspapers,
magazines, etc), medical societies, state medical
boards and the owners of social media have appointed themselves to be the sole
source of information concerning this so-called “pandemic”. Websites have been
removed, highly credentialed and experienced clinical doctors and scientific
experts in the field of infectious diseases have been demonized, careers have
been destroyed and all dissenting information has been labeled “misinformation”
and “dangerous lies”, even when sourced from top experts in the fields of
virology, infectious diseases, pulmonary critical care, and epidemiology. These
blackouts of truth occur even when this information is backed by extensive
scientific citations from some of the most qualified medical specialists in the
world.[23] Incredibly, even individuals, such as Dr. Michael Yeadon, a retired
ex-Chief Scientist, and vice-president for the science division of Pfizer
Pharmaceutical company in the UK, who charged the company with making an
extremely dangerous vaccine, is ignored and demonized. Further, he, along with
other highly qualified scientists have stated that no one should take this
vaccine.
Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the
most cited experts in his field, who has successfully treated over 2000 COVID
patients by using a protocol of early treatment (which the so-called experts
completely ignored), has been the victim of a particularly vicious assault by
those benefiting financially from the vaccines. He has published his results in
peer reviewed journals, reporting an 80% reduction in hospitalizations and a
75% reduction in deaths by using early treatment.[44] Despite this, he is under
an unrelenting series of attacks by the information controllers, none of which
have treated a single patient.
Neither Anthony Fauci, the CDC,
WHO nor any medical governmental establishment has ever offered any early
treatment other than Tylenol, hydration and call an ambulance once you have difficulty
breathing. This is unprecedented in the entire history of medical care as early
treatment of infections is critical to saving lives and preventing severe
complications. Not only have these medical organizations and federal lapdogs
not even suggested early treatment, they attacked
anyone who attempted to initiate such treatment with all the weapons at their
disposal—loss of license, removal of hospital privileges, shaming, destruction
of reputations and even arrest.[2]
A good example of this outrage
against freedom of speech and providing informed consent information is the
recent suspension by the medical board in Maine of Dr. Meryl Nass’ medical license and the ordering of her to undergo a
psychiatric evaluation for prescribing Ivermectin and sharing her expertise in
this field.[9,65] I know Dr, Nass personally and can
vouch for her integrity, brilliance and dedication to truth. Her scientific
credentials are impeccable. This behavior by a medical licensing board is
reminiscent of the methodology of the Soviet KGB during the period when
dissidents were incarcerated in psychiatric gulags to silence their dissent...
20230220-899
The $100 Billion Offshore Wind Industry Has a Whale Problem
https://gcaptain.com/the-100-billion-offshore-wind-industry-has-a-whale-problem/
The offshore wind industry has a
40-ton problem on its hands. Since early December, close to two dozen large
whales have washed up on or near beaches on the US Atlantic coast, and about a
third of the so-called strandings have occurred on the shores of New Jersey.
It’s unclear what exactly is fueling the deaths, but an unlikely coalition of
wind opponents, local environmental groups and conservative talk show hosts
have zeroed in on offshore wind as the culprit. They argue that projects in
development are disrupting marine life and contributing to the unusually high
number of deceased whales. Government
officials and the companies behind those wind projects remain firm: There is no
evidence linking the whale mortalities to ongoing offshore wind development.
They say New Jersey’s offshore wind ambitions are continuing as planned.
“Groups opposed to clean energy development are spreading misinformation,” said
JC Sandberg, chief advocacy officer at American Clean Power Association, an
industry organization. “They’ve seized on an opportunity to try and stop clean
energy deployment along the East Coast.” In January, a group of conservation
organizations, led by Clean Ocean Action, and a coalition of a dozen New Jersey
mayors penned two separate letters calling on Washington officials to halt offshore
development activities near the state. In the weeks since, the issue has gained
national attention. Climate-consciuos news outlets
are fact-checking the campaigns against offshore wind, while conservative talk
show hosts such as Tucker Carlson claim outright that wind projects are killing
whales. Some of those blaming offshore wind also have ties to conservative
groups that have long opposed clean energy...
20230217-898
Rescue heroes of Cyclone Gabrielle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb84KHAm2dc
https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/nzdf/our-equipment/ships-and-watercraft/hmnzs-te-mana/
Michael Holland meets the
heroes who rescued a sailor from a stricken yacht off Great Barrier Island
yesterday...
20230217-897
HMNZS Te Mana
https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/nzdf/our-equipment/ships-and-watercraft/hmnzs-te-mana/
HMNZS Te
Mana is our Royal New Zealand Navy's second Anzac Class frigate. Te Mana is a purpose-built warship constructed to the
German MEKO 200 design. Commanding Officer Commander John McQueen - Te Mana is designed to fight and evade her enemies and take
battle damage. Her primary mission is to ensure the security and prosperity of
New Zealand by undertaking maritime security patrols and surveillance
operations to protect our sea lines of communication or trade routes. Te Mana is crewed by up to 178 sailors from the vast majority of branches and trades in the Navy,
trained to operate the ship in environments from the cold of the Southern Ocean
to the heat of the Arabian Sea, in peacetime and in combat situations.
Frequently, Te Mana will also embark RNZAF personnel
to support helicopter operations. Te Mana was
delivered to the Ministry of Defence and commissioned
into the Royal New Zealand Navy on 10 December 1999. Te
Mana is the first ship of this name to serve in the Royal New Zealand Navy...
20230217-896
Two navy ships headed to cut-off communities in Hawke's Bay, Tairāwhiti
Two navy ships are headed
towards cut-off communities in Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti
as the Defence Force responds to a disaster that its
commander has compared to the Christchurch Earthquake. Joint Forces commander
Rear Admiral Jim Gilmour said HMNZS Manawanui would
arrive in Gisborne harbour late Thursday morning with
food and water, and a communications line would be set up in the town as
satellite phones being used by responders were running out of battery power.
Cyclone Gabrielle has caused severe damage in Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti as it tracked across the upper North Island
in recent days. Communities have been cut off, without power and electricity,
and as of Wednesday afternoon four people were confirmed dead – including a
child who died in floodwaters in Eskdale. Gilmour said the response had a
“similar feel to the Christchurch Earthquake in terms of scale”, due to the
“breadth of challenges” faced. He was the commander of HMNZS Canterbury that
was in Lyttelton Harbour
when the 2011 earthquake struck...
20230216-895
A parasitological evaluation of edible insects
and their role in the transmission of parasitic diseases to humans and
animals
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6613697/
From 1 January 2018 came into
force Regulation (EU) 2015/2238 of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 25 November 2015, introducing the concept of “novel foods”, including
insects and their parts. One of the most commonly used
species of insects are: mealworms (Tenebrio molitor),
house crickets (Acheta domesticus), cockroaches (Blattodea) and migratory locusts (Locusta migrans). In this context, the unfathomable issue is the
role of edible insects in transmitting parasitic diseases that can cause
significant losses in their breeding and may pose a threat to humans and
animals. The aim of this study was to identify and evaluate the developmental
forms of parasites colonizing edible insects in household farms and pet stores
in Central Europe and to determine the potential risk of parasitic infections
for humans and animals. The experimental material comprised samples of live
insects (imagines) from 300 household farms and pet stores, including 75
mealworm farms, 75 house cricket farms, 75 Madagascar hissing cockroach farms
and 75 migrating locust farms. Parasites were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of
300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified
parasites were pathogenic for insects only; in 106 (35.33%) cases, parasites
were potentially parasitic for animals; and in 91 (30.33%) cases, parasites
were potentially pathogenic for humans. Edible insects are an underestimated
reservoir of human and animal parasites. Our research indicates the important
role of these insects in the epidemiology of parasites pathogenic to vertebrates.
Conducted parasitological examination suggests that edible insects may be the
most important parasite vector for domestic insectivorous animals. According to
our studies the future research should focus on the need for constant
monitoring of studied insect farms for pathogens, thus increasing food and feed
safety.
Introduction
The growing demand for easily
digestible and nutritious foods has contributed to the emergence of new food
sources in agricultural processing. Edible insects are one such category of
under-utilized foods with a high nutritional value [1]. Insects are farmed for
direct consumption and for use in the production of foods and feeds [2]. The
concept of “novel foods”, including insects and their parts, has been
introduced by Regulation (EU) 2015/2238 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 25 November 2015 on novel foods, which came into force on 1 January
2018. The growing popularity of exotic pets has also increased the demand for
novel foods. However, edible insects are often infected by pathogens and
parasites which cause significant production losses [3]. These pathogens also
pose an indirect threat for humans, livestock and
exotic animals. The majority of insect farming
enterprises in the world are household businesses, and in Europe edible insects
are rarely produced on a large scale. In European Union, entomophagy is rare,
and it is regarded as a cultural taboo [4]. More than 1900 species of insects are considered to be edible. The most popular edible insects
include mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) [5], house
crickets (Acheta domesticus) [4], cockroaches (Blattodea) [6] and migratory locusts (Locusta migrans) [4].
Mealworms are beetles of the
family Tenebrionidae. Adult beetles are generally
13-20 mm in length, and larvae have a length of around 30 mm. During their
short life cycle of 1-2 months, females lay around 500 eggs. One of the largest
mealworm suppliers in the world is HaoCheng Mealworm
Inc. which produces 50 tons of live insects per month and exports 200,000 tons
of dried insects per year [7]. Mealworms are used in human and animal
nutrition, and they are a popular food source for exotic pets, including
reptiles and insectivores. The nutritional value of mealworm larvae is
comparable to that of meat and chicken eggs [8]. Mealworms are easy to store
and transport. They are abundant in highly available nutrients and are regarded
as a highly promising source of feed in poultry and fish breeding. Mealworms
can also be administered to pets and livestock [4]. The popularity of mealworms
consumption by humans is on the rise especially in Europe. Mealworms
effectively degrade biological waste and polystyrene foam [9]. The most common
mealworm parasites include Gregarine spp., Hymenolepis
diminuta and mites of the family Acaridae. Mealworms
are model insects in parasitological research [10–12].
The house cricket (A. domesticus) has a length of up to 19 mm, and its life cycle
spans 2-3 months. It is a source of food for reptiles, amphibians
and captive bred arachnids, including spiders of the family Theraphosidae.
House crickets are consumed by humans in powdered form or as protein extracts
[13, 14]. Whole crickets are consumed directly in Thailand [1]. These insects
are frequently infested by Nosema spp., Gregarine spp. and Steinernema
spp.
Cockroaches of the order Blattodea include the German cockroach (Blattella
germanica), American cockroach (Periplaneta
americana), Cuban burrowing cockroach (Byrsotria fumigata), Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa),
speckled cockroach (Nauphoeta cinerea), Turkestan
cockroach (Shelfordella lateralis) and oriental
cockroach (Blatta orientalis).
Cockroaches can live for up to 12 months, and the largest individuals reach up
to 8 cm in length. Cockroaches are increasingly popular in human nutrition, and
they are a part of the local cuisine in various regions of the world [15].
Migratory locusts are members
of the family Acrididae, order Orthoptera. Insects have up to 9 cm in length
and live for up to 3 months. Locusts are consumed by amphibians, reptiles and humans, mainly in Africa and Asia. Locusts
contain up to 28% protein and 11.5% fat, including up to 54% of unsaturated
fats [16]. Nosema spp. and Gregarine spp. are the most prevalent locust
parasites [17].
The aim of this study was to
identify and evaluate the developmental forms of parasites colonizing edible
insects in household farms and pet stores in Central Europe and to determine
the potential risk of parasitic infections for humans and animals...
20230216-894
EG - BIP per inhabitant 7.506,67 USD
Equatorial Guinea vice-president's 67m superyacht Blue Shadow !! seized !!
According to local media
companies, South African officials have seized the 66.75-metre superyacht Blue
Shadow and two palatial homes owned by Equatorial Guinea's Vice-President,
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. A court ordered the
seizures after local businessman Daniel Janse van
Rensburg won a lawsuit against the Vice-President for unlawful arrest and
torture. The Campbell Shipyards superyacht has been seized in the Victoria
& Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa. Daniel Janse
van Rensburg alleges that he was unlawfully detained in Equatorial Guinea for
about 500 days after a business deal went wrong. The businessman has also
demanded around $2.2 million (€2 million) in compensation. Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue
is the son of the world’s longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo, who has served as the second president of Equatorial Guinea since
August 1979. Both father and son have previously been accused of abusing wealth
and resources surrounding oil in Equatorial Guinea...
20230216-893
Tensions with China: US aircraft carrier conducts drills in South China
Sea
Despite ongoing high tensions
with Beijing, the US Navy is once again training alongside the Marine Corps in
the South China Sea. Washington's show of military might comes at a time when further escalations are not
necessarily propitious. The US Navy's Seventh Fleet said in a statement that
the aircraft carrier and carrier group USS Nimitz conducted a naval exercise
with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Force in the South China Sea on Feb. 11. It
was not explained when this began and how long these exercises will last. But
one thing is clear: Beijing is not happy about such military demonstrations of
power right on its own doorstep. Come shortly after the US Air Force shot down
a Chinese weather or spy balloon...
20230216-892
Cyclone Gabrielle: Teams save boatie in
‘extremely dangerous’ 8-metre waves
Rescue teams braving Cyclone
Gabrielle’s treacherous wind and seas have had to push themselves to their
limits to save a stricken boatie being tossed about
on giant waves. Teams spent a day and a half of trying to reach the 70-year-old
after huge swells pushed his catamaran off its anchorage at Aotea Great Barrier
Island early yesterday morning. With the boat’s motor failing shortly after,
the man rushed out a mayday call at 2.30am yesterday before drifting helplessly
over bucking 6m-8m waves as far as near Whangārei and then back 100km out
to sea. Police Maritime Unit Senior Sergeant Garry Larsen said the storm was so
“extreme” even the police rescue boat could not make headway and had to turn
around...
20230216-891
Facebook CEO admits: “The vaccines alter the human DNA”
Although you are censored when
you talk about it on social media, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admits to his
staff that the C0VID vaccines change the human DNA and RNA. He adds that nobody
knows what the risks are of this genetic modification, or what other mutations
can occur long term. Elon Musk explains in the same video that you can turn a
person into a "freaking butterfly" if you use the right DNA sequence.
Dr. Carrie Madej explains the grave dangers of DNA
modification, and what the deeper agenda behind it is. This is one of the most
critical videos humanity should see in our day. If you
know this already, then please look beyond yourself and send it to people who
don't know it yet...
20230215-890
Stratospheric Balloons and Airships
USA - Sioux Falls, South Dakota
https://aerostar.com/products/balloons-airships
With over 65 years of
lighter-than-air innovation and expertise, Aerostar is a world leader in the
design, manufacture, integration, and operation of stratospheric balloon
platforms and airships for near space applications. Filling the capability gap
between aircraft and satellites, our stratospheric balloon platforms and
airships offer critical advantages to a wide range of missions. Our
lighter-than-air platforms have helped NASA, Google, the U.S. Air Force, and
many other customers achieve and exceed dynamic missions, including
communications, data relay, surveillance, intelligence, and more. Partnering
with Aerostar guarantees the most advanced and reliable lighter-than-air
technologies in the stratospheric market…
…Aerostar has taken lighter-than-air technologies to all new heights by
leveraging the most brilliant minds, materials, and machinery for over 65 years
to connect, protect, and save lives.
Aerostar traces its roots
through Raven Industries, back to the General Mills Applied Sciences Division,
where Barrage Balloons and other scientific items were developed and
manufactured for the war effort. Four General Mills employees had a passion for
ballooning. They established Raven Industries to advance and develop all other
aspects of ballooning, utilizing imagination and innovation that would define
their legacy.
Their primary purpose was the
manufacture of high altitude research balloons for the
U.S. Navy. Raven produced a line of polyethylene high altitude balloons
used for research in the near space environment of 100,000 to 150,000 feet
altitudes.
In 1960, Raven invented the
modern hot air balloon. In 1966, Raven expanded to accommodate the
manufacturing of parachutes and purchased 11.5 acres of land in the Industrial
Park in Sioux Falls, SD where a 36,000 square foot production plant was built.
In 1970, Raven successfully
launched and flew the first unmanned stratospheric airship in history to
achieve powered flight in the stratosphere.
Aerostar International was
established in 1986 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raven Industries, carrying
on everything which Raven was at its inception. The technologies and expertise
of Raven’s scientific ballooning history were transferred to Aerostar. By
leveraging engineering expertise, manufacturing knowledge, and a thirst for
innovation, Aerostar revolutionized its product lines.
From 2012 to 2021, Aerostar partnered
with Loon, LLC (formerly known as Project Loon), a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
to develop of an autonomous constellation of high-altitude balloons for
communications.
Aerostar leveraged the Loon
partnership and 65 years history of balloon expertise to design and build the
Thunderhead stratospheric platform. Most notably, Aerostar developed the
Thunderstorm system to navigate balloons in the stratosphere capable of finding
and maintaining station above designated areas by changing altitude to catch
winds.
These high
altitude balloons, at 100,000 to 150,000 feet altitudes, carried
capsules holding mice, monkeys, and even cosmic ray measuring devices that
served as key proving ground for establishing man's compatibility in space...
20230215-889
Ukraine a ‘gold mine’ for illegal organ trafficking
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/watch-ukraine-a-gold-mine-for-illegal-organ-trafficking/
The US$2 billion illegal organ
harvesting business was established in Europe’s most corrupt country well
before the current hostilities. Ukraine ‘is the number one base for black transplantology’ according to a report by Southfront, an independent crowd-funded team of
international experts. The macabre trade began to flourish after Kiev launched it’s illegal war against the predominantly Russian-speaking
Donbass region in 2014, and has accelerated during the current conflict, as the
bodies of dead soldiers are ‘de-organed’ and even the injured, especially those
ending up on the operating table, are killed, their organs taken, their bodies
cremated...
20230215-888
Ukraine Warns of Drifting Mines Along Black Sea Coast
https://gcaptain.com/ukraine-warns-of-drifting-mines-along-black-sea-coast/
Shipping and coastal
communities around Ukraine’s major seaport hub of Odesa received a warning from
military officials on Tuesday over the high risk of naval mines drifting along
the coast and washing ashore. Ukraine
and Russia have accused each other of using mines off the Ukrainian coast,
which prevents safe navigation in the region. The Soviet-made mines were
anchored, but in a storm some of them could come loose and be carried by the
current. “There is a high probability of naval mines breaking off their anchors
and washing up on the shore, as well as drifting along the coast,” Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman of Odesa military administration, wrote
on Telegram messaging app...
20230215-887
The US Navy's Newest Ships
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2023/02/14/the-us-navys-newest-ships-and-submarines/
Amendments passed to the FY
2023 defense spending bill meant that the U.S. Navy would retire four
Freedom-class littoral combat ships. The original bill proposed retiring nine,
a response to the ship’s many mechanical problems, and rapid obsolescence in light of the rise of China and a more aggressive Russia,
and as the U.S. moves away from prioritizing combatting terrorism. One might
assume that a ship class on the verge of mass retirement would be an outdated
relic, possibly from the Cold War, but in fact the littoral combat ships are
among the newest ships in the fleet. Although the United States does not
currently have the largest navy presence, it ranks as the world’s strongest
naval power. (This is the world’s largest navy.) The U.S. Navy by itself boasts
a fleet of over 240 ships and submarines. The biggest and oldest assets in the
fleet are the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which were a stabilizing factor
throughout the Cold War. The U.S. owns 11 aircraft carriers overall, while
countries like Russia and China only have one and three, respectively...
20230213-886
Cyclone Gabrielle: MetService issues latest
weather warnings
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/02/12/cyclone-gabrielle-metservice-issues-latest-weather-warnings/
MetService has issued an update to its weather warnings on
Sunday night, with red heavy rain and strong wind warnings still in effect for
much of the upper North Island, including Auckland. "Cyclone Gabrielle is
forecast to bring severe weather to northern and central parts of New
Zealand," the forecaster said. "This is expected to be a widespread
and significant weather event." The cyclone is already impacting northern
parts of the country. Northland is under a red heavy rain warning until
midnight Monday. "Expect a further 150 to 250 mm of rain south of about Kaeo on top of what has already fallen, bringing totals for
the event to around 250 to 350 mm in this area." 'There will be
destruction' from Cyclone Gabrielle, Auckland officials warn...
20230213-885
Red weather warnings as Cyclone Gabrielle makes landfall
Thousands without power, evacuations begin
Cyclone Gabrielle is already
bringing strong winds and heavy rain to parts of the North Island. Most of the
North Island is covered by some kind of Severe Weather Watch or Warning either
for wind, rain or both. Red heavy rain warnings have
been issued for Northland, Auckland, the Coromandel
and the northern parts of Gisborne Tairāwhiti.
Red strong wind warnings have been issued for Northland, Auckland
and the Coromandel. RNZ will continue live coverage from 5am Monday morning and
update any major developments overnight...
20230213-884
The NSA whistleblower seemed skeptical of White House denials that the
US was responsible.
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/snowden-comments-on-nord-stream-revelations/
Edward Snowden, who exposed the
US government’s mass surveillance program a decade ago, appeared unconvinced by
Washington’s stringent denial on Wednesday that it had anything to do with the
bombing of both Nord Stream pipelines. The explosive story, which was published
earlier in the day by the legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh,
described the September 2022 explosions as the work of US intelligence. He
dutifully included the responses he received from the CIA and the White House,
which denied everything and called the story “completely and utterly false” and
“false and complete fiction,” respectively. “Can you think of any examples from
history of a secret operation that the White House was responsible for, but
strongly denied?” Snowden tweeted on Wednesday afternoon. “Besides, you know,
that little ‘mass surveillance’ kerfuffle.” He attached a lede
from an April 1961 news story, in which US Secretary of State Dean Rusk denied
the Bay of Pigs had been... “staged from American soil.” Rusk also told
reporters that “the Cuban affair was one for the Cubans themselves to settle”
but that the US was sympathetic to enemies of “Communist tyranny.” Contrary to
Rusk’s denials, the 1961 invasion was a CIA operation that used Cubans opposed
to Fidel Castro’s government as proxies. In a social media post in May 2021,
the US spy agency showcased a commemorative coin minted for “an anticipated
(but never realized) Bay of Pigs victory.” The agency’s museum described the
operation as “an unqualified disaster” which ended with most of the 1,400
invaders captured or killed within three days..
20230213-883
Sharrow Propellers (2022) - Test Video by BoatTEST.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=MNnB_50Z20It
AD - https://www.sharrowmarine.com/
The Sharrow Propeller™ is the
first major advancement in propeller technology since the 1830s. Its design has solved the most basic problem
of rotary propulsion. Specifically, tip cavitation and vortices have been
eliminated or significantly reduced, transforming your entire boating
experience. The Sharrow MX™ Propeller is the winner of the prestigious 2020
Miami International Boat Show Innovation Award and also
the winner of the 2022 Boating Marine Power Innovation Award from Boating
Magazine. The Marine Power Innovation (MPI) awards recognizes those
manufacturers who advance the state-of-the-art in marine propulsion and, in so
doing, change the recreational boating experience for the better. The Sharrow
MX™ Propeller is specifically designed for high-performance on sterndrives and
outboard motors between 150HP-450HP - “Our testing and
our investigation into the prop’s development has convinced us that there is a
new prop design that not only excelled in our tests, but may well make many
non-loop propellers obsolete...
20230210-882
Hipkins' message to Kiwis as forecasters warn
of
potentially 'most serious storm to impact NZ this century'
https://www.windy.com/de/-Windb%C3%B6en-gust?gust,2023021200,-30.415,173.452,5
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says the Government is monitoring the weather amid
warnings of a storm that one forecaster is predicting could be among the
"most serious" of the century...
20230209-881
How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States
executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now
The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage
Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a
country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the
southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The
center’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World
War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side
of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat and a dance school are across what is
now a four-lane road.
The center has been training
highly skilled deep-water divers for decades who, once assigned to American
military units worldwide, are capable of technical diving to do the good—using
C4 explosives to clear harbors and beaches of debris and unexploded
ordinance—as well as the bad, like blowing up foreign oil rigs, fouling intake
valves for undersea power plants, destroying locks on crucial shipping canals.
The Panama City center, which boasts the second largest indoor pool in America,
was the perfect place to recruit the best, and most taciturn, graduates of the
diving school who successfully did last summer what they had been authorized to
do 260 feet under the surface of the Baltic Sea.
Last June, the Navy divers,
operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known
as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months
later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source
with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
Two of the pipelines, which
were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much
of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A
second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet
operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the
bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the
pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his
political and territorial ambitions.
Asked for comment, Adrienne
Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, “This is false and
complete fiction.” Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence
Agency, similarly wrote: “This claim is completely and utterly false.”
Biden’s decision to sabotage
the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth
debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best
achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the
mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible.
There was a vital bureaucratic
reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school in Panama
City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special
Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and
briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership—the so-called Gang of
Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as
the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.
President Biden and his foreign
policy team—National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony
Blinken, and Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Policy—had been
vocal and consistent in their hostility to the two pipelines, which ran side by
side for 750 miles under the Baltic Sea from two different ports in
northeastern Russia near the Estonian border, passing close to the Danish
island of Bornholm before ending in northern Germany.
The direct route, which
bypassed any need to transit Ukraine, had been a boon for the German economy,
which enjoyed an abundance of cheap Russian natural gas—enough to run its factories
and heat its homes while enabling German distributors to sell excess gas, at a
profit, throughout Western Europe. Action that could be traced to the
administration would violate US promises to minimize direct conflict with
Russia. Secrecy was essential.
From its earliest days, Nord
Stream 1 was seen by Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat
to western dominance. The holding company behind it, Nord Stream AG, was
incorporated in Switzerland in 2005 in partnership with Gazprom, a publicly
traded Russian company producing enormous profits for shareholders which is
dominated by oligarchs known to be in the thrall of Putin. Gazprom controlled
51 percent of the company, with four European energy firms—one in France, one
in the Netherlands and two in Germany—sharing the remaining 49 percent of stock, and having the right to control downstream sales of
the inexpensive natural gas to local distributors in Germany and Western
Europe. Gazprom’s profits were shared with the Russian government, and state
gas and oil revenues were estimated in some years to amount to as much as 45
percent of Russia’s annual budget.
America’s political fears were
real: Putin would now have an additional and much-needed major source of
income, and Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to
low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia—while diminishing European reliance on
America. In fact, that’s exactly what happened. Many Germans saw Nord Stream 1
as part of the deliverance of former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s famed Ostpolitik
theory, which would enable postwar Germany to rehabilitate itself and other
European nations destroyed in World War II by, among other initiatives,
utilizing cheap Russian gas to fuel a prosperous Western European market and trading
economy.
Nord Stream 1 was dangerous
enough, in the view of NATO and Washington, but Nord Stream 2, whose
construction was completed in September of 2021, would, if approved by German
regulators, double the amount of cheap gas that would be available to Germany
and Western Europe. The second pipeline also would provide enough gas for more
than 50 percent of Germany’s annual consumption. Tensions were constantly
escalating between Russia and NATO, backed by the aggressive foreign policy of
the Biden Administration.
Opposition to Nord Stream 2
flared on the eve of the Biden inauguration in January 2021, when Senate
Republicans, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, repeatedly raised the political threat
of cheap Russian natural gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken as
Secretary of State. By then a unified Senate had successfully passed a law
that, as Cruz told Blinken, “halted [the pipeline] in its tracks.” There would
be enormous political and economic pressure from the German government, then
headed by Angela Merkel, to get the second pipeline online.
Would Biden stand up to the
Germans? Blinken said yes, but added that he had not
discussed the specifics of the incoming President’s views. “I know his strong
conviction that this is a bad idea, the Nord Stream 2,” he said. “I know that
he would have us use every persuasive tool that we have to convince our friends
and partners, including Germany, not to move forward with it.”
A few months later, as the
construction of the second pipeline neared completion, Biden blinked. That May,
in a stunning turnaround, the administration waived sanctions against Nord
Stream AG, with a State Department official conceding that trying to stop the
pipeline through sanctions and diplomacy had “always been a long shot.” Behind
the scenes, administration officials reportedly urged Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky, by then facing a threat of Russian invasion, not to
criticize the move.
There were immediate
consequences. Senate Republicans, led by Cruz, announced an immediate blockade
of all of Biden’s foreign policy nominees and delayed passage of the annual
defense bill for months, deep into the fall. Politico later depicted Biden’s
turnabout on the second Russian pipeline as “the one decision, arguably more
than the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan, that has imperiled
Biden’s agenda.”
The administration was
floundering, despite getting a reprieve on the crisis in mid-November, when
Germany’s energy regulators suspended approval of the second Nord Stream pipeline.
Natural gas prices surged 8% within days, amid growing fears in Germany and
Europe that the pipeline suspension and the growing possibility of a war
between Russia and Ukraine would lead to a very much unwanted cold winter. It
was not clear to Washington just where Olaf Scholz, Germany’s newly appointed
chancellor, stood. Months earlier, after the fall of Afghanistan, Scholtz had
publicly endorsed French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a more autonomous
European foreign policy in a speech in Prague—clearly suggesting less reliance
on Washington and its mercurial actions.
Throughout all of this, Russian
troops had been steadily and ominously building up on the borders of Ukraine,
and by the end of December more than 100,000 soldiers were in position to
strike from Belarus and Crimea. Alarm was growing in Washington, including an
assessment from Blinken that those troop numbers could be “doubled in short
order.”
The administration’s attention
once again was focused on Nord Stream. As long as Europe remained dependent on
the pipelines for cheap natural gas, Washington was afraid that countries like
Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it
needed to defeat Russia.
It was at this unsettled moment
that Biden authorized Jake Sullivan to bring together an interagency group to
come up with a plan.
All options were to be on the
table. But only one would emerge.
PLANNING
In December of 2021, two months
before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a
meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments—and asked for
recommendations about how to respond to Putin’s impending invasion.
It would be the first of a
series of top-secret meetings, in a secure room on a top floor of the Old
Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, that was also the home
of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). There was the
usual back and forth chatter that eventually led to a crucial preliminary
question: Would the recommendation forwarded by the group to the President be
reversible—such as another layer of sanctions and currency restrictions—or
irreversible—that is, kinetic actions, which could not be undone?
What became clear to
participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is
that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction
of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of
the President.
THE PLAYERS Left to right:
Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan.
Over the next several meetings,
the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly
commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force
discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The
CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone
involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If
the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”
At the time, the CIA was
directed by William Burns, a mild-mannered former ambassador to Russia who had
served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama Administration. Burns quickly
authorized an Agency working group whose ad hoc members included—by
chance—someone who was familiar with the capabilities of the Navy’s deep-sea
divers in Panama City. Over the next few weeks, members of the CIA’s working
group began to craft a plan for a covert operation that would use deep-sea
divers to trigger an explosion along the pipeline.
Something like this had been
done before. In 1971, the American intelligence community learned from still
undisclosed sources that two important units of the Russian Navy were
communicating via an undersea cable buried in the Sea of Okhotsk, on Russia’s
Far East Coast. The cable linked a regional Navy command to the mainland
headquarters at Vladivostok.
A hand-picked team of Central
Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency operatives was assembled
somewhere in the Washington area, under deep cover, and worked out a plan,
using Navy divers, modified submarines and a deep-submarine rescue vehicle, that
succeeded, after much trial and error, in locating the Russian cable. The
divers planted a sophisticated listening device on the cable that successfully
intercepted the Russian traffic and recorded it on a taping system.
The NSA learned that senior
Russian navy officers, convinced of the security of their communication link,
chatted away with their peers without encryption. The recording device and its
tape had to be replaced monthly and the project rolled on merrily for a decade
until it was compromised by a forty-four-year-old civilian NSA technician named
Ronald Pelton who was fluent in Russian. Pelton was betrayed by a Russian
defector in 1985 and sentenced to prison. He was paid just $5,000 by the
Russians for his revelations about the operation, along with $35,000 for other
Russian operational data he provided that was never made public.
That underwater success,
codenamed Ivy Bells, was innovative and risky, and produced invaluable
intelligence about the Russian Navy's intentions and planning.
Still, the interagency group
was initially skeptical of the CIA’s enthusiasm for a covert deep-sea attack.
There were too many unanswered questions. The waters of the Baltic Sea were
heavily patrolled by the Russian navy, and there were no oil rigs that could be
used as cover for a diving operation. Would the divers have to go to Estonia,
right across the border from Russia’s natural gas loading docks, to train for
the mission? “It would be a goat fuck,” the Agency was told.
Throughout “all of this
scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State
Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political
nightmare if it comes out.’”
Nevertheless, in early 2022,
the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a
way to blow up the pipelines.”
What came next was stunning. On
February 7, less than three weeks before the seemingly inevitable Russian
invasion of Ukraine, Biden met in his White House office with German Chancellor
Olaf Scholz, who, after some wobbling, was now firmly on the American team. At
the press briefing that followed, Biden defiantly said, “If Russia invades . .
. there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
Twenty days earlier,
Undersecretary Nuland had delivered essentially the same message at a State
Department briefing, with little press coverage. “I want to be very clear to
you today,” she said in response to a question. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one
way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”
Several of those involved in
planning the pipeline mission were dismayed by what they viewed as indirect
references to the attack.
“It was like putting an atomic
bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to
detonate it,” the source said. “The plan was for the options to be executed
post invasion and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or
ignored it.”
Biden’s and Nuland’s
indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated some of the
planners. But it also created an opportunity. According to the source, some of
the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no
longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced
that we knew how to do it.”
The plan to blow up Nord Stream
1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress
be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence
operation with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained,
“There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress.
All they had to do now is just do it—but it still had to be secret. The
Russians have superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea.”
The Agency working group
members had no direct contact with the White House, and
were eager to find out if the President meant what he’d said—that is, if the
mission was now a go. The source recalled, “Bill Burns comes back and says, ‘Do
it.’”
“The Norwegian navy was quick
to find the right spot, in the shallow water a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm
Island . . .”
THE OPERATION
Norway was the perfect place to
base the mission.
In the past few years of
East-West crisis, the U.S. military has vastly expanded its presence inside
Norway, whose western border runs 1,400 miles along the north Atlantic Ocean
and merges above the Arctic Circle with Russia. The Pentagon has created high
paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds
of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force
facilities in Norway. The new works included, most importantly, an advanced
synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into
Russia and came online just as the American intelligence community lost access
to a series of long-range listening sites inside China.
A newly refurbished American submarine
base, which had been under construction for years, had become operational and
more American submarines were now able to work closely with their Norwegian
colleagues to monitor and spy on a major Russian nuclear redoubt 250 miles to
the east, on the Kola Peninsula. America also has vastly expanded a Norwegian
air base in the north and delivered to the Norwegian air force a fleet of
Boeing-built P8 Poseidon patrol planes to bolster its long-range spying on all
things Russia.
In return, the Norwegian
government angered liberals and some moderates in its parliament last November
by passing the Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA). Under the
new deal, the U.S. legal system would have jurisdiction in certain “agreed
areas” in the North over American soldiers accused of crimes off base, as well
as over those Norwegian citizens accused or suspected of interfering with the
work at the base.
Norway was one of the original
signatories of the NATO Treaty in 1949, in the early days of the Cold War.
Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed
anti-communist, who served as Norway’s prime minister for eight years before
moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014. He was a
hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American
intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely
since. “He is the glove that fits the American hand,” the source said.
Back in Washington, planners
knew they had to go to Norway. “They hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy
was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in
highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration,” the source said. They also
could be trusted to keep the mission secret. (The Norwegians may have had other
interests as well. The destruction of Nord Stream—if the Americans could pull
it off—would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to
Europe.)
Sometime in March, a few
members of the team flew to Norway to meet with the Norwegian Secret Service
and Navy. One of the key questions was where exactly in the Baltic Sea was the
best place to plant the explosives. Nord Stream 1 and 2, each with two sets of
pipelines, were separated much of the way by little more than a mile as they
made their run to the port of Greifswald in the far northeast of Germany.
The Norwegian navy was quick to
find the right spot, in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea
a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island. The pipelines ran more than a mile apart
along a seafloor that was only 260 feet deep. That would be well within the
range of the divers, who, operating from a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter,
would dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium streaming from their
tanks, and plant shaped C4 charges on the four pipelines with concrete
protective covers. It would be tedious, time consuming and dangerous work, but
the waters off Bornholm had another advantage: there were no major tidal
currents, which would have made the task of diving much more difficult.
After a bit of research, the
Americans were all in.
At this point, the Navy’s
obscure deep-diving group in Panama City once again came into play. The
deep-sea schools at Panama City, whose trainees participated in Ivy Bells, are
seen as an unwanted backwater by the elite graduates of the Naval Academy in
Annapolis, who typically seek the glory of being assigned as a Seal, fighter
pilot, or submariner. If one must become a “Black Shoe”—that is, a member of
the less desirable surface ship command—there is always at least duty on a
destroyer, cruiser or amphibious ship. The least
glamorous of all is mine warfare. Its divers never appear in Hollywood movies,
or on the cover of popular magazines.
“The best divers with deep
diving qualifications are a tight community, and only the very best are recruited for the operation and told to be prepared to
be summoned to the CIA in Washington,” the source said.
The Norwegians and Americans
had a location and the operatives, but there was another concern: any unusual
underwater activity in the waters off Bornholm might draw the attention of the
Swedish or Danish navies, which could report it.
Denmark had also been one of
the original NATO signatories and was known in the intelligence community for its
special ties to the United Kingdom. Sweden had applied for membership into NATO, and had demonstrated its great skill in managing its
underwater sound and magnetic sensor systems that successfully tracked Russian
submarines that would occasionally show up in remote waters of the Swedish
archipelago and be forced to the surface.
The Norwegians joined the
Americans in insisting that some senior officials in Denmark and Sweden had to
be briefed in general terms about possible diving activity in the area. In that
way, someone higher up could intervene and keep a report out of the chain of
command, thus insulating the pipeline operation. “What they were told and what
they knew were purposely different,” the source told me. (The Norwegian
embassy, asked to comment on this story, did not respond.)
The Norwegians were key to
solving other hurdles. The Russian navy was known to possess surveillance
technology capable of spotting, and triggering, underwater mines. The American
explosive devices needed to be camouflaged in a way that would make them appear
to the Russian system as part of the natural background—something that required
adapting to the specific salinity of the water. The Norwegians had a fix.
The Norwegians also had a solution
to the crucial question of when the operation should take place. Every June,
for the past 21 years, the American Sixth Fleet, whose flagship is based in
Gaeta, Italy, south of Rome, has sponsored a major NATO exercise in the Baltic
Sea involving scores of allied ships throughout the region. The current
exercise, held in June, would be known as Baltic Operations 22, or BALTOPS 22.
The Norwegians proposed this would be the ideal cover to plant the mines.
The Americans provided one
vital element: they convinced the Sixth Fleet planners to add a research and
development exercise to the program. The exercise, as made public by the Navy,
involved the Sixth Fleet in collaboration with the Navy’s “research and warfare
centers.” The at-sea event would be held off the coast of Bornholm Island and
involve NATO teams of divers planting mines, with competing teams using the
latest underwater technology to find and destroy them.
It was both a useful exercise
and ingenious cover. The Panama City boys would do their thing and the C4
explosives would be in place by the end of BALTOPS22, with a 48-hour timer
attached. All of the Americans and Norwegians would be
long gone by the first explosion.
The days were counting down.
“The clock was ticking, and we were nearing mission accomplished,” the source
said.
And then: Washington had second
thoughts. The bombs would still be planted during BALTOPS, but the White House
worried that a two-day window for their detonation would be too close to the
end of the exercise, and it would be obvious that America had been involved.
Instead, the White House had a
new request: “Can the guys in the field come up with some way to blow the
pipelines later on command?”
Some members of the planning
team were angered and frustrated by the President’s seeming indecision. The
Panama City divers had repeatedly practiced planting the C4 on pipelines, as
they would during BALTOPS, but now the team in Norway had to come up with a way
to give Biden what he wanted—the ability to issue a successful execution order
at a time of his choosing.
Being tasked with an arbitrary,
last-minute change was something the CIA was accustomed to managing. But it
also renewed the concerns some shared over the necessity, and legality, of the
entire operation.
The President’s secret orders
also evoked the CIA’s dilemma in the Vietnam War days, when President Johnson,
confronted by growing anti-Vietnam War sentiment, ordered the Agency to violate
its charter—which specifically barred it from operating inside America—by
spying on antiwar leaders to determine whether they were being controlled by
Communist Russia.
The agency ultimately
acquiesced, and throughout the 1970s it became clear just how far it had been
willing to go. There were subsequent newspaper revelations in the aftermath of
the Watergate scandals about the Agency’s spying on American citizens, its
involvement in the assassination of foreign leaders and its undermining of the
socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Those revelations led to a
dramatic series of hearings in the mid-1970s in the Senate, led by Frank Church
of Idaho, that made it clear that Richard Helms, the Agency director at the
time, accepted that he had an obligation to do what the President wanted, even
if it meant violating the law.
In unpublished, closed-door
testimony, Helms ruefully explained that “you almost have an Immaculate
Conception when you do something” under secret orders from a President.
“Whether it’s right that you should have it, or wrong that you shall have it,
[the CIA] works under different rules and ground rules than any other part of
the government.” He was essentially telling the Senators that he, as head of
the CIA, understood that he had been working for the Crown, and not the
Constitution.
The Americans at work in Norway
operated under the same dynamic, and dutifully began working on the new
problem—how to remotely detonate the C4 explosives on Biden’s order. It was a
much more demanding assignment than those in Washington understood. There was
no way for the team in Norway to know when the President might push the button.
Would it be in a few weeks, in many months or in half a year or longer?
The C4 attached to the pipelines
would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the
procedure involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in
place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four pipelines could
be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of ocean background noises
throughout the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea—from near and distant ships,
underwater drilling, seismic events, waves and even sea creatures. To avoid
this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low
frequency tonal sounds—much like those emitted by a flute or a piano—that would
be recognized by the timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger
the explosives. (“You want a signal that is robust enough so that no other
signal could accidentally send a pulse that detonated the explosives,” I was
told by Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of
science, technology and national security policy at MIT. Postol,
who has served as the science adviser to the Pentagon’s Chief of Naval
Operations, said the issue facing the group in Norway because of Biden’s delay
was one of chance: “The longer the explosives are in the water the greater risk
there would be of a random signal that would launch the bombs.”)
On September 26, 2022, a
Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and
dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2
and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives
were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission.
Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered
pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned
that something irreversible had taken place.
FALLOUT
In the immediate aftermath of
the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery.
Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks
from the White House—but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an
act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution. A few months later, when it
emerged that Russian authorities had been quietly getting estimates for the
cost to repair the pipelines, the New York Times described the news as
“complicating theories about who was behind” the attack. No major American
newspaper dug into the earlier threats to the pipelines made by Biden and
Undersecretary of State Nuland.
While it was never clear why
Russia would seek to destroy its own lucrative pipeline, a more telling
rationale for the President’s action came from Secretary of State Blinken.
Asked at a press conference
last September about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western
Europe, Blinken described the moment as a potentially good one:
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and
for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from
Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial
designs. That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic
opportunity for the years to come, but meanwhile we’re determined to do
everything we possibly can to make sure the consequences of all of this are not
borne by citizens in our countries or, for that matter, around the world.”
More recently, Victoria Nuland
expressed satisfaction at the demise of the newest of the pipelines. Testifying
at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in late January she told
Senator Ted Cruz, “Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is,
very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of
metal at the bottom of the sea.”
The source had a much more
streetwise view of Biden’s decision to sabotage more than 1500 miles of Gazprom
pipeline as winter approached. “Well,” he said, speaking of the President, “I gotta admit the guy has a pair of balls. He said he was going to do it, and he did.”
Asked why he thought the
Russians failed to respond, he said cynically, “Maybe they want the capability
to do the same things the U.S. did.
“It was a beautiful cover
story,” he went on. “Behind it was a covert operation that placed experts in
the field and equipment that operated on a covert signal.
“The only flaw was the decision
to do it.”
20230203-880
The tsunami that came from above
Auckland floods: 90mm of rain overnight with clearer skies ahead
Clearer skies may be on the
horizon, with sunshine appearing over Auckland this afternoon and partly cloudy
days over the long Waitangi weekend. The finer weather comes as Aucklanders
recover from another tranche of rain early this morning which left more houses
flooded, destroyed by fallen trees and some teetering on the edge of massive
slips. While the city takes stock after the latest downpours, following the
deadly storm of Friday night, other parts of the North Island are in the firing
line with homes evacuated in the Coromandel and sections of the island’s state
highway network closed due to slips. A red heavy rain warning issued for
Auckland and Northland yesterday has since been lifted but the warning remains
for the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty until later today...
20230203-879
13 Cloud Seeding Missions Resulting in Heavy Rains in the UAE
https://www.uaemoments.com/13-cloud-seeding-missions-resulting-in-heavy-rains-in-the-uae-556049.html
All seven Emirates experienced
severe rain, hail, and thunderstorms on Wednesday as the clouds opened up over the United Arab Emirates. Today's weather
remained erratic, and rain is expected to last until Friday. According to the
Khaleej Times, the 13 cloud-seeding missions that have been conducted since
Monday are most likely to be the reason for some of the city's floods. Regular
cloud seeding operations are carried out in the UAE, and it is reported that
the advancement of technology has increased rainfall by up to 25%...
20230203-878
Los Angeles county has authorized cloud seeding for the first time
since 2002.
https://www.inverse.com/article/12897-how-cloud-seedin
While flooding has caused mass
evacuations and road closures in Texas and Louisiana, Californians are doing
all they they can do make it rain. Last week, for the
first time since 2002, Los Angeles County officials authorized cloud seeding
with the hope that the technology will force the clouds in their region to
produce 15 percent more rainfall. Cloud seeding is a rain-making technique developed
by Bernard Vonnegut (brother of Kurt) in 1946. Essentially, it is the process
of shooting silver iodide into clouds, which attract water vapors because it
shares a similar molecular structure to ice. It then freezes and, when the ice
becomes heavy enough and falls, it melts its way down to the surface as rain.
In Los Angeles, the Utah-based company North American Weather Consultants —
hired for $55,000 a year — set up land-based generators in 10 locations in L.A. county. These generators shoot the silver iodide up
with the hope that the created stormwater will fall in the dams and watersheds
within the area...
20230203-877
China Will Use Antarctica For Its Ocean
Monitoring Satellites
https://gcaptain.com/china-will-use-antarctica-for-its-ocean-monitoring-satellites/
China, only the third country
to put a man in space after the Soviet Union and United States, is to build
ground stations on Antarctica to back its network of ocean monitoring
satellites, state media said on Thursday. China’s global network of ground
stations to support a growing number of satellites and outer space ambitions
has drawn concern from some nations that it could be used for espionage, a
suggestion China rejects. In 2020, Sweden’s state-owned space company, which
had provided ground stations that helped fly Chinese spacecraft and transmit
data, declined to renew contracts with China or accept new Chinese business due
to “changes” in geopolitics. China Aerospace Science and Technology Group Co.
is to build the stations at the Zhongshan research base...
20230203-876
Mother Nature jeopardises Australian
submarine deal
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/mother-nature-jeopardises-australian-submarine-deal/
With top US legislators warning
that America’s industrial submarine base is near a “breaking point,” plans to
close four drydocks at a key base near Seattle could throw a wrench into a
joint US-UK plan to sell submarines to Australia. The US Navy has abruptly
halted work at four drydocks in the Pacific Northwest due to the possibility of
seismic activity, a recent statement has revealed. Citing the “possibility of a
large-scale earthquake occurring,” the Navy announced it will “temporarily
suspend submarine docking” at three drydocks in Bremerton, Washington, and another
in nearby Bangor. A “recently conducted seismic assessment… identified
potential issues associated with the remote possibility of a large-scale
earthquake occurring simultaneously with a submarine maintenance availability,”
the Navy wrote in a statement published Friday. Eight of the US military’s 14
nuclear ballistic submarines are stationed at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. It’s
unclear exactly what was wrong with the facilities or how long they will take
to repair, but the Navy says it is “working now to safely and
efficiently return the docks to service with the additional upgrades in
place...
20230202-875
Ever Given, Cape Kortia,
Grace Emilia...
Accidents or globalists games
LNG Carrier Grounds in Suez Canal
https://gcaptain.com/lng-carrier-grounds-in-suez-canal/
A LNG carrier has run
aground in the Suez Canal, but at this time does not pose a threat to maritime
traffic through the waterway, Leth Agencies has
confirmed. The vessel, the Grace Emilia, grounded at km 125 in Little Bitter
Lake, on the southern end of the canal, Leth Agencies
reported. AIS data from MarineTraffic.com shows the grounding took place a little
after 0930 UTC (1130 LT) as the vessel travelled north through the waterway at
a speed of over 9 knots. Data from VesselFinder.com indicates the vessel has
been refloated. “Update: At 17:40 LT vessel was successfully re-floated,” Leth Agencies tweeted. The Bahamas-flagged Grace Emilia is
owned by Japanese shipping group NYK. She was delivered in 2021 and is on a
multi-year charter with GAIL (India) Limited, India’s largest natural gas
company. The vessel has a 174,000 cubic meter capacity…
20230202-874
The secrets of the United Nations
https://www.stopworldcontrol.com/unevent
https://stopworldcontrol.com/fr/nu/
https://stopworldcontrol.com/de/uno/
https://stopworldcontrol.com/pt-br/dellasuno/
https://stopworldcontrol.com/nl/un
https://stopworldcontrol.com/it/dellonu/
https://stopworldcontrol.com/es/dellaonu/
We are revealing a lot more
than just this video. For example how one single
corporation virtually owns the entire world, who the obscured entities are that
control most governments, how our elections are being rigged to position
puppets of criminals, how our weather is being manipulated to create
"climate change", and even how pandemics are orchestrated to impose
tyranny on humanity. Everything is 100% evidence based, and can be extensively
fact checked through hundreds of references...
20230202-873
Shipping delays are costing business $1.7 billion in lost revenue a year
Supply chain troubles arecosting New Zealand businesses $1.7 billion in lost
revenue a year, new research shows. Supply chain consultancy group TMX Global
found delays caused by strict Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns, the war in
Ukraine, and climate change, had significantly impacted the private sector. The
New Zealand economy is worth $360 billion and with supply chain unreliability
costing companies on average 0.47% in lost revenue, TMX estimated $1.69b a year
in sales were lost. Supply chain disruption reached crunch levels in 2021, with
shipping containers and ships stuck in logjams in ports around the country.
Some container ships sat lined Waitemata Harbour for
weeks at a time waiting to get into Ports of Auckland...
20230202-872
Health Canada Pursues Enhancements to COVID Vaccine Passport, Raises
Link to Digital ID
Health Canada is seeking a
contractor to further develop its COVID-19 vaccine passport system and extend
it to include other health data such as exemption and recovery credentials,
according to a tender notice. “In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, there has
been a global effort to advance vaccines and therapeutics and develop public
health digital solutions,” says the statement of work introducing the project
issued by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC). "Canada’s ability
to defeat COVID-19 depends greatly on assembling immunization data to guide key
decision making throughout the pandemic.” The solicitation for a contractor to
build a “digital health tech platform” was posted in late November on the CanadaBuys website and bidding closed on Jan. 3. The
supplier has yet to be announced...
20230202-871
De Gaulle’s grandson urges France to restore independence, break with
Washington on...
French President Emmanuel
Macron is considering sending tanks to Ukraine, and
has not “ruled out” fighter jets as well. At the same time, he has been one of
the few European leaders calling for continued dialogue with Moscow. Macron’s
critics have expressed fears that the NATO-Russia proxy conflict in Ukraine is
pushing Europe to the brink of war. Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of revered
French statesman Charles de Gaulle, has slammed the West’s dangerous decision
to deploy heavy weapons in Ukraine, and has called on Paris to persuade the Americans
to see reason and broach a lasting peace with Moscow. “The escalation unleashed
by the Americans and NATO must come to an end. This recent decision [on tanks]
will provoke the supply of even more powerful weapons, weapons with an even
greater range. It will, unfortunately, increase the risk of a nuclear conflict.
This is the abyss that we are on the brink of,” de Gaulle said, speaking at a
round table in Moscow dedicated to French-Russian WWII cooperation and the 80th
anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad on Tuesday...
20230202-870
People don't even notice when that
what they ostracized friends and family for turned out to be a lie...
The psychologists are good -
but we are on the trail of their clever mind games. For every inept
epidemiologist, modeller, and chief government
scientist, there was at least one group of "experts" worthy of the
title: the psychologists. Without them, the last three years would not have
been possible. Groups like the UK government's Nudge Unit have been so
successful with their psychoterrorist campaign that
not only has the lockdown been enforced far more strictly than ever predicted,
but every attempt to lift the restrictions has made Boris Johnson's government
had to defend against the frightened public. He joked about Britain's
once-liberal citizens that it was easier to take away their freedoms than to
give them back. While the UK's Behavioral Insight Team may have set the bar
high, the unit - whose tactics have been condemned by other psychologists as
"grossly unethical" - was by no means unique. Behavioral experts
around the world used techniques pioneered by everyone from Sigmund Freud to
Joseph Goebbels to terrify and embarrass the public and compel them to follow
their authoritarian dictates. This Orwellian control was most evident with the
introduction of so-called "vaccines." Even before they were
developed, those in power managed to change the medical definition of a
once-familiar procedure, convincing the public that it was a non-sterilizing
"therapeutic" at best. Other harassment was used to get the public
excited about vaccination. These included classic marketing tricks like claims
that a vaccine "may never be found" (just weeks before it was found);
that it would not be available to many (before it was conveniently made
available to the concerned cohorts); to theatrical stories about having to
store it in sub-zero temperatures (clever marketing again). The simplest trick
of the psychologists, of course, was to create a Goebbelsian
"in group" of good citizens and a dangerous "out group" of
disease spreaders...
20230201-869
?!?US Navy suspends submarine work prompting concerns
about AUKUS agreement?!?
Is it possible to hear grass
growing? - The Navy says operations at
the docks will be placed on hold temporarily because they need to be
strengthened against potential future 
earthquakes
. The closure has prompted fresh concerns about the
delivery timeline for Australia's nuclear-powered submarines secured through
the AUKUS agreement...
20230201-868
Silent-Yachts unveils new images of the 37m Silent 120 Explorer yacht
https://www.superyachttimes.com/yacht-news/silent-120-explorer-yacht
Silent-Yachts has unveiled new
images of the 36.74-metre Silent 120 Explorer yacht. The impressive flagship
solar catamaran is able to create enough energy to not
only power the yacht but all of her appliances onboard. The first Silent 120
Explorer yacht is currently in-build with an expected launch date of 2024. The aluminium Silent 120 yacht has a huge interior volume but
remains under the 500 GT mark with powerful styling and interior design by
Marco Casali. The Silent 120 Explorer yacht has
custom design at the heart of her philosophy, with the first hull featuring a
swimming pool on the aft deck and grassy areas for walking dogs on her side
decks. Her solar hardtop is also designed to slide out in two sections
revealing a touch-and-go helipad. When not in use, the upper sun deck can be
used for sunbathing....
20230201-867
Russia names people behind US-backed Ukraine biological projects
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/russia-names-people-behind-us-backed-ukraine-biological-projects/
Moscow claims the individuals
conducted research focused on testing and developing new deadly weapons.
Russian troops have obtained over 20,000 documents pertaining to American
biological research programs in Ukraine since the start of Moscow’s military operation,
the country’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday. The most recent trove
brought to light a number of key players in these
projects who had previously “remained in the shadows,” according to the
commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces,
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov. The ministry had previously published the
names of people connected to the biolabs, which included representatives of the
US Democratic Party, Defense Department officials, and Pentagon contractors. The
new list features people such as Karen Saylors, the
executive director of Labyrinth Global Health, who reportedly worked in Ukraine
as a lead consultant for a project that studied the spread of African swine
fever.
20230201-866
Moscow provides more evidence of US biolabs in Ukraine
Kiev’s troops were among the test subjects for Pentagon-funded
research, the Russian MOD says.
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/moscow-provides-more-evidence-of-us-biolabs-in-ukraine/
Russia’s Defense Ministry on
Monday laid out more evidence that US-funded laboratories were working in
Ukraine. Documents and materials recovered by Russian troops showed that
Western pharmaceutical companies operating in territory under Kiev’s control
conducted HIV/AIDS research on Ukrainian military personnel. The commander of
Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, Lieutenant General
Igor Kirillov, presented Ukrainian-language documents referring to HIV
infection studies that began in 2019. The list of targeted groups shows service
members alongside prisoners, drug addicts and other “patients at high risk of
infection.” According to Kirillov, the Russian military has recovered more than
20,000 documents and other materials related to the biological programs in
Ukraine, while interviewing eyewitnesses and participants. The evidence
“confirms the focus of the Pentagon on creating biological weapons components
and testing them on the population of Ukraine and other states along [Russia’s]
borders,” the general told reporters...
20230201-865
High-ranking ex-military officials in the USA warn of nuclear war
https://tkp.at/2023/01/31/hochrangige-ex-militaers-in-usa-warnen-vor-nuklearkrieg/
As the WHO stubbornly and
against all evidence continues to insist on the continuation of a pandemic that
never was, the danger of nuclear war grows. The US and its NATO entourage
provide weapons systems and repair facilities, ammunition, information,
training, money - literally everything needed to wage war. You just don't pull
the trigger yourself. Retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis explains what that means in
an interview with US media. He suggests imagining another country doing the
same thing to the United States: “Imagine if Russia or China got behind the
Taliban completely during the Afghan war and gave them everything they had,
including all of their modern equipment to kill American soldiers,"
according to the US military...
20230201-864
Containership Suffers Engine Room Fire at the Panama Canal
https://gcaptain.com/containership-suffers-engine-room-fire-at-the-panama-canal/
The Panama Canal Authority is
reporting that a fire broke out in the engine room of a containership near the
Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal on Monday. The fire was reported on the
Maltese-flagged Cape Kortia as it navigated towards
the PSA Panama International Terminal. Panama’s National Aeronaval Service
responded to the incident with two vessels. The fire has since been brought
under control and no injuries are reported...
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