Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
- February 15 – New Documents Reveal More British Efforts To Undermine Russia
Related:
Leaked papers allege massive UK govt effort to co-opt Russian-language anti-Kremlin media & influencers to ‘weaken Russian state’ – RT
Lipstick on a Pig, British-Style: Or Why the UK’s Anti-Russian Propaganda Campaign is Bound to Fail – Irrussianality
HMG Sponsored Bear-Baiting – Anatoly Karlin / UNZ
Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal – Grayzone
- February 16 – U.S. Focus On Narratives Will Let It Collide With Reality
Related:
Biden Tells Allies ‘America Is Back,’ but Macron and Merkel Push Back – NYT
Biden Should End U.S. Hypocrisy on Israeli Nukes – Foreign Policy
> [E]very U.S. president since Bill Clinton has, at Israeli insistence, signed a secret letter upon entering office that effectively pledges the United States will not “press the Jewish state to give up its nuclear weapons so long as it continued to face existential threats in the region.”
…
the U.S. government has promulgated a regulation—described in the U.S. Energy Department’s Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities—that threatens government employees with severe punishment if they acknowledge Israel has nuclear weapons. Naturally, the regulation is withheld from public release. <
- February 18 – Why Is Biden Creating Himself An Iran Quagmire?
Related:
Press TV interviews Zarif: Talks will begin once US, JCPOA signatories return to compliance – PressTV
> "Nothing has changed. Biden claims that Trump's policy of maximum pressure was maximum failure… But for all practical purposes, they are pursuing the same policy," he said.
…
Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif said that those alleging that the JCPOA has to encompass more subject matters than it already has should be sure that it will “absolutely not.”The US and some of its regional allies have demanded that Iran’s missile program and regional influence be included in the nuclear talks. Tehran has roundly rejected any such prospect, saying it will not renegotiate “a done deal” and that its defensive activities and regional might are not open to any negotiation. <
- February 19 – The No Change Presidency
Related:
Must read! Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with the RBC Media Holding, Moscow, February 19, 2021 – (English Transcript) – video – mid.ru
> And in fact, Joe Biden’s administration will not cancel anything which was done by Donald Trump except for leaving the World Health Organisation (WHO). The Democrats are returning there now. <
- February 20 – NATO Deployments To Iraq Are Supposed To Put Pressure On Iran – They Will Instead Become Hostages
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Other issues:
Xinjiang:
The piece below partly builds on our previous one: Why Do These Uighur Witnesses' Stories Constantly Change?
Sputnik Vaccine propaganda fail:
- Russia Is Offering to Export Hundreds of Millions of Vaccine Doses, but Can It Deliver? – Feb 19 2021 – New York Times
The Kremlin has scored propaganda points and bolstered several longstanding foreign policy goals by offering its Sputnik V vaccine around the world. But it has limited production capacity.
> “We still wonder why Russia is offering, theoretically, millions and millions of doses while not sufficiently progressing in vaccinating its own people,” the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, told a news conference this week. “This question should be answered.” <
- Looming Supply Glut of Russia’s Sputnik V Vaccine Could Pave Way for Exports Feb 19 2021 – Moscow Times
Pharmaceutical industry experts told The Moscow Times that manufacturers are set to overshoot targets while Russians remain indifferent to the jab.
> “There will absolutely be excess supply in Russia. I believe that around 30% of Russian-made vaccines will be ready for export,” said Vitaly Shakhnazarov, quality director at COREX, a pharmaceutical logistics firm working through Russia and Eastern Europe.
…
Kulish believes that the RDIF’s estimates of 30 million Sputnik doses manufactured monthly by March — 10 million of them in Russia and the rest in countries including Brazil, South Korea and Kazakhstan — may be conservative, and that by June the Russian pharmaceutical sector could overshoot its ambitions and produce up to 40 million jabs monthly. <
Covid-19 U.S. failure:
- Feds OK’d Export of Millions of N95 Masks as U.S. Workers Cried for More – Naked Capitalism
- New CDC school opening guidelines fail to ‘follow the science’ – STAT
- A Grim Measure of Covid’s Toll: Life Expectancy Drops Sharply in U.S. – NYT
> The 2.7-year drop in life expectancy for African-Americans from January through June of last year was the largest decline, followed by a 1.9-year drop for Hispanic Americans and a 0.8-year drop for white Americans. <
Covid-19 On variants of concern:
Boeing:
The cause was fan blade off (FBO) event on a Pratt & Whitney 4077 engine. This is the THIRD time this happens (UA1175 13 Feb 2018, JA8978 4 Dec 2020, UA328 20 Feb 2021). All incidents were contained and all three flights made safe landings. But one of these days an FBO will not be contained and a 777 will come down from such an incident. An FAA investigation of the 2018 event found unsafe procedures during P&W routine inspections of the fan blades : NDI Process Failures Preceded Boeing 777 PW4077 Fan Blade Off (FBO) Event (United Airlines N7773UA) – Aerossurane
Use as open thread …
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