What Mark Carney ultimately wants, Peter Foster concluded in 2021 after reading Carney's manifesto Value(s), is "a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism"
June 5, 2021 (updated January 16, 2025) - "In his book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor both of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, claims that western society is morally rotten, and that it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a 'climate emergency' that threatens life on earth. This, he claims, requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding....
"Since the advent of the COVID pandemic, Carney has been front and centre in the promotion of a political agenda known as the 'Great Reset,' or the 'Green New Deal,' or 'Building Back Better.' All are predicated on the claim that COVID, and its disruption of the global economy, provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not just to regulate climate, but to frame a more fair, more diverse, more inclusive, more safe and more woke world.
"Carney draws inspiration from, among others, Marx, Engels and Lenin, but the agenda he promotes differs from Marxism in two key respects.
First, the private sector is not to be expropriated but made a 'partner' in reshaping the economy and society.
Second, it does not make a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better, but worse. Carney’s Brave New World will be one of severely constrained choice, less flying, less meat, more inconvenience and more poverty: 'Assets will be stranded, used gasoline powered cars will be unsaleable, inefficient properties will be unrentable,' he promises.
"The agenda’s objectives are in fact already being enforced, not primarily by legislation but by the application of non-governmental — that is, non-democratic — pressure on the corporate sector via the ever-expanding dictates of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and by 'sustainable finance,' which is designed to starve non-compliant companies of funds, thus rendering them, as Carney puts it, 'climate roadkill'.... Carney’s Agenda is promoted by the United Nations and other international bureaucracies and a vast and ever-growing array of non-governmental organizations and fora, especially the World Economic Forum (WEF), where Carney is a trustee. Also, perhaps most surprisingly, by its corporate victims. No one wants to become climate roadkill....
"Despite his thorough castigation of market society, Carney somehow also believes this 'corroded' society is clamouring to make great personal sacrifices for draconian climate actions and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Carney has been a prime pusher of 'net-zero,' the notion that climate-related human emissions must be entirely eradicated, buried or offset by 2050 if the world is to avoid climate Armageddon. He claims that net-zero is 'highly valued by society.' In reality, the vast mass of people have no clue what it entails; when Carney talks about this version of 'society,' he is talking about a small, radical element of it.....
"Carney is a classic example of what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” of constructivist rationalism: the belief that the largely spontaneous institutions of the market order should be rejected in favour of more deliberately planned arrangements. Carney is undoubtedly an intelligent man, but Hayek stressed that the thing that intelligent people tend most to overestimate is the power of intelligence — particularly if they happen to be socialists.
"Carney is also of the class that philosopher Karl Popper described as 'enemies' of an 'open society.' Popper noted that social upheavals tend to bring forth prophets who claim to understand the forces shaping the future, and promise salvation if they are given absolute power. Such was Plato’s model.... Similarly, Marx’s communism was a response to the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution....
"What Carney ultimately wants ... is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism..... [A]ccording to Carney 'political technology' is needed to 'build a broad consensus around the right goals.' No question of debating the goals, or the science, just building a consensus to support them.... The threat is too great to permit any argument."
January 28, 2025 - "In November, InvestNow, the not-for-profit of which I’m executive director, submitted shareholder proposals to Canada’s Big Five banks asking them to exit both the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) ... two interrelated, UN-sponsored, and Mark Carney-led organizations whose members pledge to align their lending, investment and other activities with decarbonization goals, including achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. As I wrote in these pages in December, 'Canadian banks should not pursue political or ideological goals at the expense of fiduciary ones. And they shouldn’t shun oil and gas.'
"Well, fast forward to January.... Six of the biggest U.S. banks have all announced they’re leaving the NZBA and four of the Big Five Canadian banks — BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank and TD — have followed suit. Also, in perhaps the biggest defection of all, BlackRock has left the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAMI) — the asset management arm of the GFANZ. It is ironic that in the week Mark Carney announced his run for Liberal party leader, his most cherished project collapsed.
"Why have these banks fled the net zero alliances en masse? In the U.S., at least, it likely has to do with the new administration having indicated an interest in investigating ESG (environmental, social and governance) lending and investing practices as potentially constituting a fraud against shareholders and the economy.
"The U.S. banks have also been accused of collusion by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, on the grounds that their net zero policies, including divestment from oil, gas, and coal, have contributed to the big rise in energy prices since 2020. The committee found 'substantial evidence that a climate cartel of financial institutions' had engaged in 'anticompetitive collusion' by demanding that companies 'disclose, reduce and enforce' their net zero climate commitments....
"Both the American and Canadian banks have stressed that leaving NZBA won’t affect their net zero commitments or their determination to help achieve a 'net zero global economy,' which means drastically reducing oil and gas production and consumption over a very short period....
"Canadian banks should take what is happening in the U.S. as a warning. Maintaining their singular focus on decarbonization to achieve net zero leaves them open to charges of collusion, too. The real-world effect of their favoured policy is to eliminate oil and gas, one of Canada’s most productive and prosperity-creating sectors. Its elimination would be bad for bank shareholders and customers, industry in general, the economy and our entire country. Their continuing down this ideological path, which runs contrary to the interest of shareholders and the public alike, should prompt further investigation.
"InvestNow applauds the banks in both countries for exiting the net zero alliances as a first step towards moving past the madness of 'Net Zero by 2050.' But the fact that they remain committed to decarbonization, to net zero, and to the effective end of our natural resource sector demonstrates that our work is not done. Our banks need to ditch ideology and get back to serving the people of Canada and their interests."
Social media has embraced Mark Carney for Liberal leader (and Prime Minister of Canada) with a fervor that recalls the boomlet for Kamala Harris last summer. But his victory is by no means assured.
by George J. Dance
"May you live in interesting times," goes the ancient Chinese curse. Canadian politics has certainly got a lot more interesting this month.
Ten days ago I made a prediction that Trudeau would exploit the threat of Trump tariffs to stay on as Liberal leader and prime minister. In my opinion Trudeau is far too much the narcissist to voluntarily give up power. As well, I believed leadership candidate Mark Carney's claims that he was an "outsider" to the federal government, and thought the Liberal insiders would close ranks to stop him.
However ,while it is still way too early to say, and I am for now sticking with it, that part of my prediction appears to be wrong. It looks like Carney's path to the Prime Minister's office will be much easier than I had thought.
How did I go wrong? For one thing, I thought that Carney and Trudeau would be rivals, if not enemies. It turns out, though, that Carney has been on Team Trudeau for some time, serving as Justin's Special Adviser and Chair of the Liberal Task Force on Economic Growth since last September. I still find it inconceivable that Trudeau voluntarily give up power, but it is possible that he is being forced out, due to his abysmal polling numbers and/or pressure from Carney's colleagues in the United Nations (where Carney is Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance) or the World Economic Forum (where he is an Agenda Contributor and a Foundation Board member).
Social media has embraced Carney with a fervor that recalls the boomlet for Kamala Harris last summer. But his coronation is not a sure thing. For one thing, he has not even been officially approved as a candidate yet - no one has. Until the party announces an official list, there is no way of knowing even who will be on the ballot.
The other announced candidates so far are all Members of Parliament (MPs): two of Trudeau's cabinet ministers and an assortment of his backbenchers. With Carney the perceived front runner, it is easy to imagine these MPs forming an ABC (anyone but Carney) alliance and depriving him of the win, just like what happened to Michael Ignatieff in his first run for the Liberal leadership. While Ignatieff did eventually win the leadership, his political fortunes never recovered after that loss; as leader, he was unable to unite the party, and he ended up leading the Liberals to a third-place finish in the next election.
There is also the complication that, while the Liberals are charging the candidates $350,000 each to run, they are making party membership free. Until January 23, anyone can sign up and vote on the next Prime Minister; if I remember correctly, you don't even have to be a citizen. That seems like a play for a high number of votes, but it also looks like a call for every crank and right-wing troll to join the party. In such a milieu, who knows who will eventually emerge as the winner?
There is even an outside chance that the race does not end with a clear winner, and has to be rescheduled. If so, that brings me back to my original scenario, with Justin Trudeau leading the party in one final campaign.
We will just have to wait and see. I for one intend to keep a close eye on the Liberal race.
The global Covid response was destructive to public trust, economic vitality, citizen health, free speech, literacy, religious and travel freedom, elite credibility, demographic longevity, and more. Five years later, the postwar neo-liberal world order itself seems to be in danger.
October 20, 2024 - "The global Covid response was the turning point in public trust, economic vitality, citizen health, free speech, literacy, religious and travel freedom, elite credibility, demographic longevity, and so much more. Now five years following the initial spread of the virus that provoked the largest-scale despotisms of our lives, something else seems to be biting the dust: the postwar neoliberal consensus itself.
"The world as we knew it only a decade ago is on fire, precisely as Henry Kissinger warned in one of his last published articles. Nations are erecting new trade barriers and dealing with citizen uprisings like we’ve never seen before, some peaceful, some violent, and most that could go either way. On the other side of this upheaval lies the answer to the great question: what does political revolution look like in advanced industrial economies with democratic institutions? We are in the process of finding out.
"Let’s take a quick march through modern history through the lens of US-China relations. From the time of China’s opening in the 1980s to the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the volume of trade imports from China only grew, decade after decade. It was the most conspicuous sign of a general trajectory toward globalism that began following the Second World War and accelerated with the end of the Cold War. Tariffs and trade barriers fell ever more, as dollars as the world reserve currency filled the coffers of world central banks. The US was the global source of liquidity that made it all possible.
"It came at a huge cost, however, as the US through the decades lost its manufacturing advantages in dozens of industries that once defined the American commercial experience. Watches and clocks, pianos, furniture, textiles, clothing, steel, tools, shipbuilding, toys, household appliances, home electronics, and semiconductors all left US shores while other industries are on the rocks, most especially cars. Today, the much-celebrated 'green energy' industries seem fated to be outcompeted as well. These industries came to be largely replaced by debt-financed financial products, the explosion of the government-backed medical sector, information systems, entertainment, and government-funded education, while the primary exports of the US became debt and petroleum products.
"Many forces combined to sweep Donald Trump into office in 2016 but resentment against the internationalization of manufacturing was high among them. As financialization replaced domestic manufacturing, and class mobility stagnated, a political alignment took shape in the US that stunned the elites. Trump got busy on his pet issue, namely erecting trade barriers against countries with whom the US was running trade deficits, primarily China.
"By 2018, and in response to new tariffs, the volume of trade with China took its first huge hit, reversing not only a 40-year trajectory of growth but also dealing the first the biggest blow against the 70-year postwar consensus of the neo-liberal world. Trump was doing it largely on his own initiative and against the wishes of many generations of statesmen, diplomats, academics, and corporate elites.
"Then something happened to reverse the reversal. That something was the Covid response.... Trade with China soared. Within a matter of weeks, Americans were wearing Chinese-made synthetic coverings on their faces, having their noses stuck with Chinese-made swabs, and being tended to by nurses and doctors wearing Chinese-made scrubs.
The chart on China’s trade volume looks like this. You can observe the long rise, the dramatic fall from 2018, and the reversal in the volume of PPE purchases following the lockdowns and Kushner’s interventions. The reversal did not last long as trade relations broke down and new trade blocs were born.
"The irony, then, is a salient one: the aborted attempt to restart the neo-liberal order, if that is what it was, occurred in the midst of a global bout of totalitarian controls and restrictions. To what extent were the Covid lockdowns deployed in service of resisting Trump’s decoupling agenda? We have no answers to that question but observing the pattern does leave room for speculation.
"Regardless, the trends of 70 years came to be reversed, landing the US in new times, described by the Wall Street Journal in the event of a Trump victory in 2024:
If it turns out that the tariff on China is 60% and the rest of the world is 10%, the U.S.’ average tariff, weighted by the value of imports, would leap to 17% from 2.3% in 2023, and 1.5% in 2016, according to Evercore ISI, an investment bank. That would be the highest since the Great Depression, after Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1932), which triggered a global surge in trade barriers. U.S. tariffs would go from among the lowest to highest among major economies. If other countries retaliated, the rise in global trade barriers would have no modern precedent.
"Talk of the Smoot-Hawley tariff really does plunge us into the wayback machine. Back in those days, trade policy in the US followed the US Constitution (Article I, Section 8). The original system granted Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among other powers. This was intended to keep trade policy within the legislative branch to ensure democratic accountability. As a result, Congress responded to the economic/financial crisis by imposing huge barriers against imports. The Depression worsened.
"It was a widely accepted belief among many in elite circles that the 1932 tariffs were a factor in the deepening of the economic downturn. Two years later, efforts began to transfer trade authority to the executive so that the legislature would never do something so stupid again. The theory was that the president would be more likely to pursue a free-trade, low-tariff policy. That generation never imagined that the US would elect a president who would use his power to do the opposite.
"In the waning days of the Second World War, a group of extremely smart and well-intended diplomats, statesmen, and intellectuals worked to secure the peace in the aftermath of the wreckage in Europe and around the world. They all agreed that a priority in the postwar world was to institutionalize economic cooperation as broadly as possible, under the theory that nations that are dependent on each other for their material well-being were less likely to go to war against each other.
"Thus was born what came to be called the neo-liberal order. It consisted of democratic nations with limited welfare states cooperating in trading relationships with ever-lower barriers between states. In particular, the tariff was deprecated as a means of fiscal support and industrial protection. New agreements and institutions were founded to be the administrators of the new system: GATT, IMF, World Bank, and the UN.
"The neo-liberal order was never liberal in the traditional sense. It was managed from the outset by states under US dominance. The architecture was always more fragile than it appeared to be. The Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, tightened through the decades, involved nascent institutions of global banking and included a US-managed monetary system that broke down in 1971 and was replaced by a fiat-dollar system. The flaw in both systems had a similar root. They established global money but retained national fiscal and regulatory systems, which thereby disabled the specie-flow mechanisms that smoothed and balanced trade in the 19th century.
"One of the consequences was the manufacturing losses mentioned above, which coincided with a growing public perception that the institutions of government and finance were operating without transparency and citizen participation. The ballooning of the security state after 9-11 and the stunning bailouts of Wall Street after 2008 reinforced the point and set the stage for a populist revolt. The lockdowns – disproportionately benefitting elites – plus the burning of cities with the riots of the summer of 2020, the vaccine mandates, and combined with the onset of a migrant crisis, reinforced the point.
"In the US, the panic and frenzy all surround Trump but that leaves unexplained why almost every Western country is dealing with the same dynamic. Today the core political fight in the world today concerns nation-states and the populist movements driving them versus the kind of globalism that brought a worldwide response to the virus as well as the worldwide migrant crisis. Both efforts failed spectacularly, most especially the attempt to vaccinate the entire population with a shot that is only defended today by manufacturers and those in their pay.
"The problem of migration plus pandemic planning are only two of the latest data points but they both suggest an ominous reality of which many people in the world are newly aware. The nation-states that have dominated the political landscape since the Renaissance, and even back in some cases to the ancient world, had given way to a form of government we can call globalism. It doesn’t refer only to trade across borders. It is about political control, away from citizens in countries toward something else that citizens cannot control or influence.
"From the time of the Treaty of Westphalia, signed in 1648, the idea of state sovereignty prevailed in politics. Not every nation needed the same policies. They would respect differences toward the goal of peace. This involved permitting religious diversity among nation-states, a concession that led to an unfolding of freedom in other ways. All governance came to be organized around geographically restricted zones of control. The juridical boundaries restrained power.
"The idea of consent gradually came to dominate political affairs from the 18th through the 19th century until after the Great War which dismantled the last of the multinational empires. That left us with one model: the nation-state in which citizens exercised ultimate sovereignty over the regimes under which they live. The system worked but not everyone has been happy with it.
"Some of the most high-status intellectuals for centuries have dreamed of global government as a solution to the diversity of policies of nation-states. It’s the go-to idea for scientists and ethicists who are so convinced of the correctness of their ideas that they dream up some worldwide imposition of their favored solution. Humanity has by and large been wise enough not to attempt such a thing beyond military alliances and mechanisms to improve trade flows.
"Despite the failure of global management last century, in the 21st century, we’ve seen the intensification of the power of globalist institutions. The World Health Organization (WHO) effectively scripted the pandemic response for the world. Globalist foundations and NGOs seem to be heavily involved in the migrant crisis. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, created as nascent institutions for a global system of money and finance, are exercising outsized influence on monetary and financial policy. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is working to diminish the power of the nation-state over trade policies.
"Then there is the United Nations. I happened to be in New York City a few weeks ago when the United Nations met.... The attendees were not only statesmen from all over the world but also the biggest financial firms and media outfits, along with representatives of the largest universities and nonprofits. All of these forces seem to be coalescing at once, as if they all want to be part of the future. And that future is one of global governance wherein the nation-state is eventually reduced to pure cosmetics with no operational power.
"The impression I had while there was that the experience of everyone in town that day, all swarming around the big United Nations meeting, was one of deep separation of their world from the world of the rest of us. They are 'bubble people.' Their friends, source of financing, social groupings, career aspirations, and major influence are detached not only from normal people but from the nation-state itself. The fashionable attitude among them all is to regard the nation-state and its history of meaning as passe, fictional, and rather embarrassing.
"Entrenched globalism of the sort that operates in the 21st century represents a shift against and repudiation of half a millennium of the way governance has worked in practice. The United States was initially established as a country of localized democracies that only came together under a loose confederation. The Articles of Confederation created no central government but rather deferred to the former colonies to set up (or continue) their own structures of governance. When the Constitution came along, it created a careful equilibrium of checks and balances to restrain the national state while preserving the rights of the states. The idea here was not to overthrow citizen control over the nation-state but institutionalize it.
"All these years later, most people in most nations, the United States especially, believe that they should have final say over the structure of the regime. This is the essence of the democratic ideal, and not as an end in itself but as a guarantor of freedom, which is the principle that drives the rest. Freedom is inseparable from citizen control of government. When that link and that relationship are shattered, freedom itself is gravely damaged.
"The world today is packed with wealthy institutions and individuals that stand in revolt against the ideas of freedom and democracy. They do not like the idea of geographically constrained states with zones of juridical power. They believe they have a global mission and want to empower global institutions against the sovereignty of people living in nation-states.
"They say that there are existential problems that require the overthrow of the nation-state model of governance. They have a list: infectious disease, pandemic threats, climate change, peacekeeping, cybercrime, financial stability, and the threat of instability, and I’m sure there are others on the list that we’ve yet to see. The idea is that these are necessarily worldwide and evade the capacity of the nation-state to deal with them.
"We are all being acculturated to believe that the nation-state is nothing but an anachronism that needs to be supplanted. Keep in mind that this necessarily means treating democracy and freedom as anachronisms too. In practice, the only means by which average people can restrain tyranny and despotism is through voting at the national level. None of us have any influence over the policies of the WHO, World Bank, or IMF, much less over the Gates or Soros Foundations. The way politics is structured in the world today, we are all necessarily disenfranchised in a world governed by global institutions.
"And that is precisely the point: to achieve universal disenfranchisement of average people so that the elites can have a free hand in regulating the planet as they see fit. This is why it becomes supremely urgent for every person who aspires to live in peace and freedom to regain national sovereignty and say no to the transfer of authority to institutions over which citizens have no control.
"Devolving power from the center is the only path by which we can restore the ideals of the great visionaries of the past like Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and the entire generation of Enlightenment thinkers. In the end, governing institutions must be in citizen control, and pertain to the borders of particular states....
"There are plenty of reasons to regret the collapse of the neo-liberal consensus and a strong rationale to be concerned about the rise of protectionism and high tariffs. And yet what they called 'free trade' (not the simple freedom to buy and sell across borders but rather a state-managed industrial plan) also came at a cost: the transference of sovereignty away from the people in their communities and nations to supranational institutions over which citizens have no control. It did not have to be this way but that is how it was constructed to be.
"For that reason, the neo-liberal consensus built in the postwar period contained the seeds of its own destruction. It was too dependent on the creation of institutions beyond people’s control and too reliant on elite mastery of events. It was already crumbling before the pandemic response but it was the Covid controls, nearly simultaneously imposed all over the world to underscore elite hegemony, that exposed the fist under the velvet glove.
"The populist revolt of today might someday appear as the inevitable unfolding of events when people become newly aware of their own disenfranchisement. Human beings are not content to live in cages. Many of us have long predicted a backlash to the lockdowns and all that was associated with them. The full scale of it none of us could have imagined. The drama of our times is as intense as any of history’s great epochs: the fall of Rome, the Great Schism, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the fall of the multinational empires. The only question now is whether this ends like America 1776 or France 1790."
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On September 22, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly voted to adopt the Pact for the Future, which aims to "transform global governance" by turning the UN into a vastly more powerful "UN 2.0".
UN Secretary-General António Guterres addresses opening of the Summit of the Future.. UN Photo/Loey Felipe.
September 23, 2024 - "Governments and dictators from around the world gathered in New York and adopted a sprawling agreement to expand and further empower the United Nations. The controversial declaration approved by the UN General Assembly, known as the 'Pact for the Future,' is seen by the UN and its member governments as a great leap forward for the cause of globalism.... [T]he UN is becoming 'UN 2.0,' as top leaders of the organization put it. However, in the United States, at least, lawmakers, governors, and grassroots leaders are growing increasingly restless about what they perceive as a historic power grab....
"According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, former leader of the world’s preeminent alliance of socialist and communist political parties, the UN Summit of the Future represents 'an essential first step towards making global institutions more legitimate, effective, and fit for the world of today and tomorrow.... We can’t create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents,' continued Guterres, a line that was printed out on giant signs throughout UN headquarters.... 'We recognize that the multilateral system and its institutions, with the United Nations and its Charter at the center, must be strengthened to keep pace with a changing world,' reads the Pact for the Future.... 'We renew our commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation,' the Pact adds. 'We will transform global governance and strengthen the multilateral system'....
"The term 'global governance,' often used as a less-ominous placeholder for global government, is mentioned repeatedly throughout the document, always as something positive to be advanced. Under the heading 'transforming global governance,' for instance, the pact calls for a dramatic expansion of these mechanisms for governing all of humanity.... One of the institutions that received a shoutout is the would-be global Supreme Court known as the 'International Court of Justice,' often ridiculed by critics as a 'kangaroo court'. 'We will fulfil our obligation to comply with the decisions and uphold the mandate of the International Court of Justice,' the Pact states.
"Another area where the UN hopes to expand its power is on taxation, vowing to 'explore options' for 'international cooperation' on taxes and in particular, on taxing 'high net worth' individuals. 'We are committed to strengthening the inclusiveness and effectiveness of tax cooperation at the United Nations,' the UN deal explains, one of many efforts to eventually implement global taxation....
"One of the major tools to help the UN 'renew' trust in globalism is controlling information, as the pact makes clear. It calls on governments to 'address' so-called 'disinformation, misinformation, hate speech and content inciting harm, including content disseminated through digital platforms'.... It is not just restricting information.... A confidential memo sent to communications executives across the UN system earlier this year and obtained by The New American magazine included provisions on how to propagandize humanity on the Summit of the Future and its agenda. 'The Summit of the Future is a pivotal moment on our agenda,' the memo said, adding that the UN Department of Global Communications 'wants to make sure we take the media with us – starting with briefs on specific parts of the agenda.' One way the UN has done that is by partnering with Google to hide information contrary to its narratives, especially on issues such as climate....
"One of the major power grabs in the final agreement inked this weekend involves the UN response to what it describes as 'complex global shocks.' These could be anything from 'climate' issues or economic problems to environmental crises or even unpredictable “black swan” events. Under a proposal outlined in a policy brief dubbed 'Our Common Future' released by UN boss Guterres last year, Guterres himself would essentially become a global dictator to deal with real or imagined international emergencies, declared at his discretion. The proposal called for nations, business, and all sectors of society to recognize the 'primary role of intergovernmental organs [such as U.N. agencies] in decision-making.' While the final agreement this week did not contain everything he asked for, it did provide a 'mandate' from member states for Guterres to pursue the agenda vigorously....
"UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a recipe for global tyranny adopted in 2015 as the 'master plan for humanity,' was a focal point of the new deal. 'We reaffirm our enduring commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals,' the new agreement states, vowing to 'urgently accelerate' its implementation with “concrete political steps” and more tax money. As part of that, the UN claims it needs virtually limitless amounts of power and money to do everything from 'eradicate poverty' and 'eliminate food insecurity' to deal with alleged man-made 'climate change' and reduce 'inequality' both 'within' and 'among' countries"....
"Already, more than half of U.S. governors have publicly pledged to resist UN dictates in their respective states. Meanwhile, for the first time, Congress currently has bills to end U.S. involvement in the UN in both houses of Congress: House Bill 6645 and Senate Bill 3428, both labeled the 'DEFUND Act.' There has been virtually no coverage of the UN summit or the pact from the establishment media in the United States — and that is no doubt by design. If and when Americans learn what the UN is up to, Congress would be compelled by a public outcry to stop funding it all at the very least."
The Louisiana Senate has unanimously passed Bill SB-133, which provides that "No rule, regulation, fee, tax, policy or mandate of any kind of the [World Health Organization] WHO, [United Nations] UN and the [World Economic Forum] WEF shall be enforced or implemented by the state."
March 29, 2024 - "The State of Louisiana Senate unanimously passed a bill that would ban all influence from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
"International organizations, especially since the pandemic, have gained an increasingly dominant role in many of its 194 member countries’ policy making, including in Canada.
"Bill SB-133 on Public Health and International Organizations, a law that proposes 'that the WHO, the UN and the WEF shall have no jurisdiction or power within the state of Louisiana,' passed ... the senate by a vote of 37 to 0 Monday. 'No rule, regulation, fee, tax, policy or mandate of any kind of the WHO, UN and the WEF shall be enforced or implemented by the state of Louisiana or any agency, department, board, commission, political subdivision, governmental entity of the state, parish, municipality, or any other political entity,' the bill states....
"On March 11, the bill was introduced in the Senate, read a second time, and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and International Affairs. After the unanimous vote Monday, it was sent to the House....
"Canadian Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis is pushing for similar steps to be taken in Canada. Lewis launched petition e-4623, in opposition to the WEF’s Agenda 2030 and for Canada to exit the WHO and UN. It garnered 90,089 signatures by its February 7 deadline and was presented to the House of Commons March 22.
"The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty, proposed last year, has a deadline of May 2024. Canada will then either commit to the treaty or not. However, there still has been no parliamentary review or even discussion of Canada’s position or commitments to an international pandemic treaty, according to Lewis.... The legally binding treaty gives power to the WHO over global health management of future pandemics — according to what the organization classifies as a pandemic. In such an event, the WHO would require countries to implement its designated response measures.
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government earlier released a statement regarding the development of the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. 'Canada is working closely with other countries and international partners to strengthen global pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This includes the development of a new WHO convention, agreement or international instrument,' it said, adding that Canada has been offered the opportunity to contribute to the drafting process.... Canadian officials will then participate in the vote on the final draft at the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting in May 2024.
"Last year Trudeau was questioned on the government’s engagement with the WHO on drafting these International Health Regulations amendments. 'As an active member of the WHO, Canada has always been there to push for better science and to push for better impacts in the way we collaborate around the world. Canada is a leading voice on ensuring not only that we make it through this pandemic, which is continuing to be ongoing, but also that we prepare for future pandemics, which, unfortunately, may well be the reality for decades and generations to come,' replied Trudeau. 'We will continue to be active, strong participants in international forums around health while always respecting and protecting Canada’s sovereignty and choices to make the right decisions for its own citizens.'
March 7, 2024 - "Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and Marco Mendicino have condemned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to resume and increase payments to an alleged Hamas-affiliated relief program. 'We are deeply troubled by the allegations that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel,' they said.
"Ottawa had paused UNRWA funding in January due to allegations 12 of the organization’s staff had connections to Islamic terror group Hamas, which is also the head of the Palestine government. However, the Trudeau Liberals this week announced they will resume, and increase, relief payments to the UNRWA. The next payment, $25 million, is scheduled for April, with additional funding to come....
"Housefather and Mendicino published a joint statement to social media Thursday, criticizing their own party’s funding of the UNRWA, despite the organization's 'contribution to the spread of violence, disinformation and hate.' They also warned 'funds (sent to Palestine) will be misappropriated by Hamas.'
"The MPs said that while they strongly support 'efforts to deliver life saving humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,' they 'encourage Canada to find new ways to provide' resources to suffering Palestinian civilians. 'We did not believe that this aid should flow through UNRWA and strongly support Canada's recent decision to suspend funding, as did our G7 partners and other key allies,' wrote the MPs....
“'In addition, UNRWA employees have been sanctioned in the past for facilitating terrorist activity and for using antisemitic materials in educational textbooks,' the statement continues. 'This misconduct has contributed to the spread of violence, disinformation and hate.
"'Given its history, we believe that UNRWA lack sufficient governance and internal controls to ensure that humanitarian aid delivered by Canada will be reliably delivered to those who actually need it and that there is a serious risk. Funds will be misappropriated by Hamas....
“'In the meantime, we have recommended to the federal government that Canada work in lockstep with the US and other allies to leverage alternate partners and to create new vehicles of humanitarian aid that will meaningfully reach the civilians of Gaza in the short term.'"
The U.S. Germany, the UK, Finland, Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have paused funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Paletsinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), following reports that UNRWA staff were involved in October's terrorist attack on Israel.
January 27, 2024 - "Germany, Canada, the U.K., and six other Western nations have joined the U.S. in pausing funding for UN Palestinian refugee agency after Israel alleged 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack..... UNRWA has fired the accused staffers and launched an investigation. The head of UNRWA warned on Saturday that 'lifesaving assistance is about to end' due to nine countries' decision to suspend funding....
"A senior Israeli official said the Shin Bet and Israeli military intelligence provided information that pointed to the active participation of UNRWA staffers and the use of the agency's vehicles and facilities during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. 'This was strong and corroborated intelligence,' the official said. 'A lot of the intelligence is a result of interrogations of militants who were arrested during the Oct. 7 attack.'
"The U.S. on Friday became the first country to pause its funding to UNRWA over the allegations. It was the first step by the Biden administration against UNRWA since renewing U.S. funding to the agency after the Trump administration completely cut it off. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the ... the administration has 'temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA while we review these allegations and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.'
"Germany, UNRWA's second-largest donor, joined the U.S. in pausing funding on Saturday. The U.K., Finland, Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland also temporarily suspended their funding....
[UNRWA chief Philippe] Lazzarini said on Friday he terminated the contracts of the accused staff members and launched an investigation .... 'Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution," Lazzarini said.... The UN will conduct an 'urgent and comprehensive independent review of UNRWA,' Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said on Friday. Guterres ... has also asked Lazzarini to 'investigate this matter swiftly and to ensure that any UNRWA employee shown to have participated or abetted what transpired on 7 October, or in any other criminal activity, be terminated immediately and referred for potential criminal prosecution,' he added.
"Miller said Secretary of State Tony Blinken spoke to Guterres on Thursday.... Miller welcomed the UN's announcement of a comprehensive and independent review of UNRWA.... 'UNRWA plays a critical role in providing lifesaving assistance to Palestinians, including essential food, medicine, shelter, and other vital humanitarian support,' Miller added. 'Their work has saved lives, and it is important that UNRWA address these allegations and take any appropriate corrective measures, including reviewing its existing policies and procedures.'
"Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Friday thanked the Biden administration for 'taking an important step in holding UNRWA accountable.... Terrorism under the guise of humanitarian work is a disgrace to the UN and the principles it claims to represent," he added."
"You can be sure that corporate media reports on climate change will be slanted," says John Birch Society CEO Bill Hahn; which is why the Society sent its own accredited journalists to COP28. This is from their reports.
December 22, 2023 "So we’re told that a monumental deal was struck at the latest Climate Change conference that will phase out fossil fuels. But is it true? You can be sure that corporate media reports on climate change will be slanted.... This is why it’s important for us to attend these conferences and get a first person look at what goes on..... The New American, a media outlet of The John Birch Society, sent a team of three investigative journalists to COP28, the United Nations climate change conference that was held in Dubai, an Arab police state that does not allow dissent within its country. The New American had covered many of these UN conferences in the past and was once again granted official access to the event....
"A senior editor of The New American, Alex Newman, who has attended these conferences since 2009, reported online that 'Governments at the United Nations COP28 "climate" summit agreed to "transition" away from "fossil fuels" today. But don’t believe the hype from the media about a "phaseout" or "phase down’ of hydrocarbon energy at the UN summit. What is really happening is a planned phaseout of the Western world — what used to be known as Christendom or the 'Free World' — as the UN and Western leaders work to usher in a new "multipolar" world order'....
"Advocates of the globalist agenda have been quite open about this since at least the early 1970s regarding building a New World Order or NWO. Over the last few years, the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR] has offered a new course of direction for the NWO. It focuses on moving away from the leadership of the U.S. and other Western countries to also include other countries like [the] autocracies of China, Russia, and other participants of BRICS. Richard Haass, the longtime President of the [CFR] wrote in the March 23, 2021 Foreign Affairs magazine, 'The international system is at a historical inflection point.… the Western-led liberal order that emerged after World War II cannot anchor global stability in the twenty-first century.… The best vehicle for promoting stability in the twenty-first century is a global concert of major powers'....
"What he is describing is also known as a multipolar New World Order.... [T]he U.S. was used as the main leader for the post-WWII era. It unconstitutionally used its vast resources to help build up Communist countries, as well as those that would belong to the European Union, while at the same time building up world government bodies like the United Nations and its many affiliates. In a multipolar world order, the U.S. and its Western allies would continue to utilize its resources by transferring large amounts of wealth to poorer countries. Doing so will bring down the standard of living for the average American while raising up those in developing countries as well as countries like China and Russia who give lip service to the agenda of the United Nations, but work to build themselves into the leading superpowers.
"Mr. Newman reported, 'Throughout the COP28 ‘climate’ summit, the Biden administration and Western governments pledged ever-more suicidal energy policies and draconian wealth redistribution from the middle class under the guise of saving the planet. According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore, just the U.S. government’s latest methane promises — a de facto ban on natural-gas power plants — will take out upwards of 60 percent of American electric power generation. But that pain will not be shared around the world. In fact, officials from the United Arab Emirates and Communist China, among others, were exposed planning to make oil and gas deals at the summit.... The news was spun by the establishment press to portray the UAE government hosting the climate talks in a negative light. But the real significance of the scandal was lost: It highlights the fact that the anti-energy hysteria and silly "solutions" such as solar panels and windmills being peddled to Western populations by the UN and the media are primarily undermining the economies of Western nations, including Europe and the United States — not China or other autocracies, whose emissions are all soaring with no end in sight.'
"Leave it up to the suckers in the U.S. and the EU to follow the 'rules,' but Communist countries are in no way participating in their own economic destruction by dismantling their industries or turning off a major flow of revenue through resource or product sales. The value they place on human life disqualifies them from actually carrying out this agenda based on a democratic or just way of living. Ironically, the Kremlin posted this statement when Xi Jinping visited Russia earlier in 2023: 'We jointly work to create a more just and democratic multipolar world order, which should be based on the central role of the UN, its Security Council, international law, and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.' If that’s what they are working toward, then the free world should want nothing to do with it given the Communist’s idea of justice and democracy....
As Mr. Newman ... wrote, 'The president of the COP28 conference, ADNOC [Abu Dhabi National Oil Company] chief Sultan Al Jaber, outraged climate alarmists worldwide when he ridiculed their pseudo-scientific pronouncements. [see video]. "I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist," he told former Irish President Mary Robinson.... Other oil-producing Arab governments also injected a major dose of reality into the summit while undermining the UN-backed Western media narrative. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman ridiculed the idea that the world would "phase out” hydrocarbon energy. “And I assure you not a single person — I’m talking about governments — believes in that,” he was quoted as saying in the press.'
"This is the heart of the matter: Climate action is nothing more than a front to usher in totalitarian world government — a New World Order that proponents in globalist and communist circles have been discussing for more than 100 years. Those elected officials and other so-called dignitaries in the climate change movement do not honestly believe in their cause, or their actions would have reflected their convictions.... [B]ills to get the U.S. out of the UN have been recently introduced in the House and the Senate, the first time in a long time. Let’s generate some pressure in Congress to get these voted on."
Developed countries including the U.S., the UK, Germany, and Japan have agreed to pay millions in climate reparations to the United Nations, for a fund intended to compensate vulnerable nations for 'climate-induced disasters.'
December 1, 2023 - "The UK government has agreed to pay tens of millions in climate 'reparation Loss and Damage funds at this year's U.N. COP28 summit. On Friday, the UK government pledged a £60 million contribution to the world’s poorest countries affected by climate change at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai. The Loss and Damage fund is a plan to get wealthy nations that benefited from fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution to compensate developing states....
"UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron wrote on X, (formerly known as Twitter), that it is 'vital we build on our support to the developing countries most impacted by climate change.' 'That's why the UK has pledged up to £60m at COP28 to help repair the loss and damage caused by events such as floods and crop failure,' he added.
"Last year, countries reached an agreement on establishing a fund to compensate vulnerable nations for "loss and damage" from "climate-induced disasters." The Guardian reported that this year's funding is close to $429 million, with pledges from host country UAE as well as Germany, the United States and Japan.
"According to the government, loss and damage funds are 'often framed as an act of compensation or reparation from more developed countries' though it said that 'these terms are not used in the COP agreement.... However, some small island states are exploring avenues of legal redress on the liability of historically high emitters,' it added. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said 'reparations' for climate change were 'not on the table' at COP27 last year.
"A study published in 2019, quoted by Parliament, calculated that loss and damage for developing countries could rise from between $290 billion and $580 billion in 2030 and reach over $1 trillion by 2050.... Labour MP Afzal Khan shared a statement on Friday saying that 'a serious commitment to climate finance for loss and damage at this year's COP28 conference is absolutely essential to support individuals who are made refugees in their own country as a result of extreme weather events'.... 'It is thought there will be 1.2 billion climate refugees in the next 25 years, with the impacts of climate change worsening, acting now is the only viable option," added Mr Khan.'
"Net Zero Watch's Head of Policy Harry Wilkinson told The Epoch Times by email that 'countries suffering from the effects of extreme weather should be supported, particularly poorer countries.... However, it would be a mistake to view this in transactional terms,' he said. 'Industrialisation has clearly had huge benefits and it’s important to remember that the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] concludes that there is low confidence in any global trends for most forms of extreme weather. Ultimately, it will be economic growth, which means that extreme weather events have a smaller and smaller impact on our wellbeing,' added Mr. Wilkinson....
"Climate researcher and creator of Climate Debate, Ben Pile, told The Epoch Times that on the face of it, the £60 million contribution gesture 'is in fact peanuts'.... 'India's GDP is likely to rise by 1,000 percent over the coming decades. So neither the UK's contribution, nor the entire fund itself makes any difference to Indians, and would be a bad deal for them, if they were to take it as a bribe on a per-capita basis, versus their continued economic and industrial development,' he added. He maintained that India and other countries would "all be better off burning coal, oil and gas.' 'And so they would be if, rather than destroying our own economies, we kept the supply of affordable and abundant energy, too. It would mean we would be able to better trade with developing economies,' he said.
"Mr. Pile was deeply sceptical about aid, which he has previously called 'an instrument intended to secure the establishment's/government's agenda.... 'The point of these budgets, however, is not to deliver any good to people in need in the world. It is to keep afloat the parasitic fake civil society organisations and politically-motivated fake "research" organisations that depend on government largesse and eco-billionaire handouts,' he said."
June 20, 2020 - "For decades, progressives have attempted to use climate change to justify liberal policy changes. But their latest attempt – a new proposal called the 'Great Reset' – is the most ambitious and radical plan the world has seen in more than a generation. At a virtual meeting earlier in June hosted by the World Economic Forum, some of the planet’s most powerful business leaders, government officials and activists announced a proposal to 'reset' the global economy. Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs.
"'Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,' wrote Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in an article published on WEF’s website. 'In short, we need a "Great Reset" of capitalism.' Schwab also said that 'all aspects of our societies and economies' must be 'revamped,' 'from education to social contracts and working conditions.'
"Joining Schwab at the WEF event was Prince [now King] Charles, one of the primary proponents of the Great Reset; Gina Gopinath, the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund; António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations; and CEOs and presidents of major international corporations, such as Microsoft and BP. Activists from groups such as Greenpeace International and a variety of academics also attended the event or have expressed their support....
"Although many details about the Great Reset won’t be rolled out until ... 2021, the general principles of the plan are clear: The world needs massive new government programs and far-reaching policies comparable to those offered by American socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in their Green New Deal plan....
"One of the main themes of the June meeting was that the coronavirus pandemic has created an important 'opportunity' for many of the World Economic Forum’s members to enact their radical transformation of capitalism.... 'We have a golden opportunity to seize something good from this crisis — its unprecedented shockwaves may well make people more receptive to big visions of change,' said Prince Charles at the meeting, adding later, 'It is an opportunity we have never had before and may never have again.'
"You might be wondering how these leaders plan to convince the world to completely alter its economy over the long run, since the COVID-19 pandemic most assuredly won’t remain a crisis forever. The answer is that they’ve already identified another 'crisis' that will require expansive government intervention: Climate change. 'The threat of climate change has been more gradual [than COVID-19]—but its devastating reality for many people and their livelihoods around the world, and its ever greater potential to disrupt, surpasses even that of Covid-19,' Prince Charles said.
"Of course, these government officials, activists and influencers can’t impose a systemic change of this size on their own. Which is why they have already started to activate vast networks of left-wing activists from around the world.... According to the World Economic Forum, its 2021 Davos summit will include thousands of members of the Global Shapers Community, youth activists located in 400 cities across the planet. The Global Shapers program was involved in the widespread 'climate strikes' of 2019, and more than 1,300 have already been trained by the Climate Reality Project, the highly influential, well-funded climate activist organization run by former Vice President Al Gore, who serves on the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees.
"For those of us who support free markets, the Great Reset is nothing short of terrifying. Our current crony capitalist system has many flaws, to be sure, but granting more power to the government agents who created that crony system and eroding property rights is not the best way forward. America is the world’s most powerful, prosperous nation precisely because of the very market principles the Great Reset supporters loathe.... The present pandemic is a 'golden opportunity' for radical change. And if Al Gore, Prince Charles and the rest of the World Economic Forum can convince enough people that attempting to stop climate change is also worth dramatically pushing humanity toward greater government control, then radical – and catastrophic – change is exactly what we’re going to get."
July 3, 2022 - "I know a Canadian man who lives in Thailand. He teaches English as his primary occupation, but he and his wife also have a 'hobby farm' raising crickets.... When the insects are ready for harvesting, his wife — a Thai native — fries them up with popular Thai seasonings. The crickets are then sold as snacks.... For Thais, eating insects isn’t novel. Take a look at some of the other mouth-watering delicacies they eat: bamboo worms, silkworms, grasshoppers and giant water bugs....
"Thais aren’t the only people in the world who eat insects.... Recently, however, it has been announced that Canada, of all places - where I’ve lived all my life and have never known anyone to eat crickets - will become home to the world's largest cricket farm, newly built in London, Ontario by Aspire Food Group. The company’s CEO, Mohammed Ashour, predicts that North Americans will soon join two billion other people on the planet who, he claims, already eat insects.
"Note, though, that the world’s insect-eaters are almost all in third-world countries.... The Thai restaurants I’ve been to in North America offer beef, pork, shrimp and chicken on the menu, but I’ve never seen one offer worms, grasshoppers or crickets. People eat bugs primarily when they can’t afford more appetizing forms of protein. I checked with a friend in the nearby but much wealthier country of Singapore. He ... told me that, no, he has never seen anyone selling crickets. Singapore’s per capita GDP is seven times that of Thailand. Even Malaysians, who live right next door to Thailand but have a GDP per capita that’s 54% higher, don’t eat crickets, although there are apparently insect agriculture start-ups gearing up right now, just as in Canada. I wonder why.
"Aspire’s website acknowledges that it also received a third government grant, namely $10 million from SDTC (Sustainable Development Technology Canada) in June 2020. SDTC describes itself as 'a foundation created by the Government of Canada in 2001 to invest in clean technologies that address climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil'....
"A search for 'crickets' in this database of Canadian Government Grants and Contributions revealed 24 separate grants totaling $13.8 million for food-related purposes, including another $8.5 million for Aspire Food Group under something called the AgriInnovate Program. As a taxpayer, I object strenuously to this use of my money for the manipulation of people’s eating habits. If people wanted to eat crickets, they’d buy them without any need for subsidies. If they don’t want to, they shouldn’t be continually pushed into doing so, with their own tax dollars doing the pushing.
"As far as the environment is concerned, there are other, non-coercive ways of making agriculture more productive while improving the environment. Farmer Joel Salatin of the famous Polyface Farm has lectured and written about this for decades. His method of regenerative agriculture restores land fertility while producing five times as much per acre as the neighbouring farms in his county. Regenerative Salatin-style farms are popping up all over the place in Canada. I’ve been buying all my meat, eggs, honey and flour from such farms for at least five years. These farmers work hard, improve their land, feed their customers, but if they make a profit at it — whoosh! It’s syphoned off to subsidize their cricket-rearing competitors. Pardon the pun, but it’s just not cricket."
Peter Daszak, whose EcoHealth Alliance funded the Wuhan Institute's coronavirus experiments on behalf of Anthony Fauci's NIAID, has been removed from a UN commission investigating the pandemic's origins
June 21, 2021 - "British scientist Peter Daszak has been removed from the COVID commission looking at the origins of the pandemic after helping secretly denounce the lab leak theory while failing to mention his close ties to the same facility.
"The scandal-hit scientist's departure from the UN-backed Lancet commission into the virus's origins was revealed on its website. It added a sentence in brackets under his photo and above his biography, saying 'recused from Commission work on the origins of the pandemic.' No further information on Daszak's departure was given - but he has faced conflict of interest claims after his close ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] were revealed last month.
"Daszak, 55, president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, was one of 28 experts from around the world asked to analyze how best to respond to the pandemic. The panel comprised leading global figures in public health, economics, philanthropy, diplomacy and politics. It is organized by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.... On Monday the COVID commission updated their website to show that Daszak was recused.
"Daszak's presence on a number of bodies investigating the origins of COVID has proved controversial because he has links to the Wuhan Institute and its chief researcher Dr Shi Zhengli - dubbed 'Batwoman'.... The conservation charity of which Daszak is the director, EcoHealth Alliance, has funneled money into the lab and research being done by Dr [Shi]....
"[Daszak] helped organize a letter published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet that was signed by 27 scientists, including Daszak himself, and denounced the lab leak claim as a 'conspiracy theory,' and 'nonscientific'.... They wrote at the time: 'We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus' [while declaring 'no competing interests' - gd].... When DailyMail.com contacted The Lancet’s editor, Dr Richard Horton, about the decision to publish and support the letter, both he and his office declined to comment....
"Daszak was part of a group of scientists who in late January traveled to the Wuhan lab on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) to explore how the virus originated.... The WHO report that he helped to author described animals as the 'most likely' source of the pandemic, and ... suggestions that the virus leaked from any of the labs in Wuhan - including the Institute of Virology - were dismissed as 'extremely unlikely'. Yet it later emerged that the WHO team was only given three hours in the lab and were not given access to all the documentation they needed....
"In April the [U.S. Congress's] House Energy and Commerce Committee sent Daszak 34 questions about his involvement with the lab. Despite a deadline of May 17, Daszak failed to respond, a source close to the committee told DailyMail.com. The questions were about his charity, its federal funding which went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, and the work the U.S. nonprofit did with the Chinese lab....
"Rather than respond to the allegations that he 'bullied' other scientists into signing off on The Lancet letter - and that his ties to the lab led to such a conflict of interest that he should never have sat on two panels investigating the cause of COVID-19 - [Daszak] told a DailyMail.com reporter: 'You need to remove your car from our drive right now, leave the area and never come back.... Goodbye, I have no comment,' he added."
June 2, 2021 - "Over a year after projecting that the coronavirus pandemic could have a 'catastrophic' impact on the global economyand workforce, the United Nations labor agency on Wednesday revealed that the public health crisis pushed more than 100 million workers worldwide into poverty.
"The new report (pdf), entitled World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021 (WESO Trends), also warns of the 'real risk that — absent comprehensive and concerted policy efforts — the Covid-19 crisis will leave behind a legacy of widened inequality and reduced overall progress in the world of work across multiple dimensions.'
"Worryingly, the International Labor Organization (ILO) report shows that 'the recovery process is likely to be both incomplete and uneven,' said Guy Ryder, the agency's director-general, in a video about the findings. 'Incomplete because the damage done will not be fully repaired by the end of 2022, we will still have a major jobs shortfall,' Ryder explained. 'Uneven because it's the rich countries, the high-income countries, which are the best placed — because they have vaccines, because they have the fiscal means to do so — to recover more quickly."
"The ILO found that relative to 2019, an additional 108 million workers worldwide are now moderately or extremely poor — meaning their families must survive on less than $3.20 per person each day. The report says that 'five years of progress towards the eradication of working poverty have been undone.' [emphasis added - gd]
"The pandemic has 'highlighted the vulnerable situation of migrant workers' and undermined recent progress on gender equality, the report adds. According to Agence France-Presse, Ryder told reporters that the ongoing crisis has also negatively affected efforts to end child [labour] and forced labor.
"'Looking ahead, the projected employment growth will be insufficient to close the gaps opened up by the crisis,' WESO Trends warns. 'To make matters worse, many of the newly created jobs are expected to be of low productivity and poor quality.'
"The U.N. agency projects that the pandemic-induced 'jobs gap' will hit 75 million this year and fall to 23 million next year. The gap in working hours — which accounts for the jobs gap and hours reductions — is expected to be the equivalent of 100 million full-time jobs in 2021 and 26 million full-time jobs in 2022.....
"'Worldwide, employment in the accommodation and food services sector is estimated to have been the worst affected by the crisis,' says the report. The wholesale and retail trade sector was also heavily hit, as was manufacturing and construction, which 'incurred a significant decline in employment as a result of the crisis, bearing the brunt of the impact in the industry sector.'
"'Recovery from Covid-19 is not just a health issue. The serious damage to economies and societies needs to be overcome too,' Ryder emphasized in a statement. 'Without a deliberate effort to accelerate the creation of decent jobs, and support the most vulnerable members of society and the recovery of the hardest-hit economic sectors, the lingering effects of the pandemic could be with us for years in the form of lost human and economic potential and higher poverty and inequality.'
"'We need a comprehensive and coordinated strategy, based on human-centered policies, and backed by action and funding," he added. 'There can be no real recovery without a recovery of decent jobs.'"
October 20, 2019 - "With gasoline prices in California eclipsing $4/gallon, Americans have taken to nervously glancing at their gas gauges. Oil prices appear to only be going in one direction (up), with dramatic disruptions such as a drone attack on Saudi refineries disrupting fuel supplies. But things may soon get far worse if the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a sub-agency of the United Nations, implements onerous worldwide restrictions on fuel content.
"Starting in 2020, the IMO will require the phasing out of sulfur from ship fuels despite documented difficulties in refiners’ ability to meet strict new standards. Unless the IMO changes course, consumers across America, and all around the world, will foot the bill for higher gasoline prices as the result of global fuel shortages. If America and her allies fail to act soon to stymie the efforts of this global bureaucracy, affordable gas will soon be a thing of the past.....
"Like many unaccountable international governmental organizations (IGOs), the IMO is hardly noticed by the media. But the agency’s 2016 decision to ratchet down sulfur content in shipping fuels from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent has received plenty of press and attention from analysts around the world. Environmentalists have lauded the IMO’s decision and called for eliminating scrubbers used to wash out sulfur and comply with the new standards. But the IMO and cheerleader groups fail to properly acknowledge or address the fuel shortages that will likely result....
"In moving away from sulfur, shippers will likely switch en masse to alternatives such as gasoil or diesel. That’s not good news for refineries, which will face significant pressures to ramp up production of these stand-ins. Currently, there simply isn’t enough low-sulfur fuel to go around, and refineries will need to sharply increase capacity and operations in order to keep up....
"Worldwide regulations holding the industry back make it even more difficult for refineries to keep up.... In the US, federal fuel regulations have significantly contributed to the closure of 70 refineries since 1990. And since then, refineries have spent more than $100 billion complying with ultra-specific federal standards about which blends of fuel they are required to produce.... In Europe, refinery regulation is often even stricter than in the US....
"[A]sking everyone in the world to pay drastically higher fuel and shipping costs overnight hardly seems like a practical solution to environmental issues.... By working with shippers to achieve gradual, more attainable goals, the IMO could signal that it is serious about cleaning up the environment while keeping costs low. Consumers around the world deserve clean skies without having to gasp at their gas gauges, and taxpayers deserve an IGO that makes sound decisions."
March 12, 2019 - "One of the most influential associations within the United Nations (UN) has endorsed the decriminalization of drug possession and use in a policy statement.
"The UN Chief Executives Board (CEB), which represents 31 UN agencies including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), adopted a position stipulating that member states should pursue science-based, health-oriented drug policies—namely decriminalization. Transform, a UK-based drug reform advocacy group, first reported this week on the policy statement, which was quietly released in January.
"The significance of the decriminalization endorsement is hard to overstate. Not only does it represent a substantial evolution on the part of certain UN agencies like the UNODC, which has historically supported the enforcement of punitive drug laws, but it also comes ahead of a major international meeting that will shape future UN drug policy.
"The UN CEB said the agencies ... will 'promote alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use'....
Other policies the organization is embracing include investing in harm reduction programs, calling for universal health care coverage for substance use disorders, addressing prison overcrowding and eliminating the stigma and discrimination associated with drug use....
"As Transform explained, there have been a number of endorsements for decriminalization among certain UN agencies in recent years. The World Health Organization (WHO), The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women and UN Development Program have each embraced the policy, as has former UN Secretary General ban Ki Moon and the current secretary general, António Guterres.
"Guterres, as Portugal’s prime minister, oversaw the passage of a national law to decriminalize drugs, a policy he touted in a speech to UNCND last year.
"But the unanimous adoption of a pro-decriminalization stance by the UN CEB ... sends an unambiguous message to member states that they should treat drug use as a public health, rather than criminal justice, issue."
