China has weighed in on the Pentagon’s continued occupation of Syria in the wake of Wednesday’s Republican-sponsored War Powers Resolution in the House, which according to Congressman Matt Gaetz was aimed specifically at forcing President Biden to withdraw all American troops from Syria.

In a Friday press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was asked for a response to the vote. She demanded that the US “immediately end the troops’ illegal occupation and plundering” and to halt the sanctions regimen which is crushing the Syrian economy and thus increasing the misery of common people.

“Since the US began its illegal interference in the Syrian crisis, its military operations in Syria have taken away a large number of innocent civilian lives and caused grave humanitarian disasters,” she said.

Mao also sought to underscore that Washington is increasingly isolated on the issue, noting the US has been “criticized multiple times” by the United Nations. She further said US forces have conducted “indiscriminate attacks that may amount to a war crime.”

She called on Washington to “respect other countries’ sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” and that it must stop “aggravating humanitarian disasters” in Syria – in reference to widespread reports that US sanctions hindered rescue efforts in the wake of last month’s earthquake.

As for the bipartisan push to get troops out of Syria led by Matt Gaetz, The Intercept has revealed a possible last-minute effort by hawks to sabotage the bill and paint its supporters into a corner:

Before the Rules Committee approved the War Powers Resolution for a vote, Republican leaders added a clause to its consideration that would have blocked Congress from voting again on a motion “introduced during the first session of the One Hundred Eighteenth Congress pursuant to section 5 of the War Powers Resolution with respect to Syria.” The language slipped past the resolution’s supporters, including the three Freedom Caucus members who won new seats on the Rules Committee, Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

Now it all makes sense:@HouseGOP & @DeptofDefense aimed to crush the Syria vote, then block any more action by Congress, giving Admin free rein in Syria.

This explains why they flew @thejointstaff Milley to Syria for 1st time & @HouseForeign put huge effort into floor debate. https://t.co/Y6nt5IjgnG

— Erik Sperling 🌍 (@ErikSperling) March 10, 2023

The update in The Intercept continues:

According to sources familiar with the fallout, Massie, Roy, and Gaetz discovered the language and pressed Republican leadership to strip it out, with some members threatening to vote down the rule if the language wasn’t removed. Ultimately, the lobbying worked, and Massie went to the floor to ask that the language be removed by unanimous consent, which requires the full chamber to agree, or at least not to contest the move. Democrats went along with the motion. One Republican member of Congress involved in the negotiations said that his initial assumption that party leadership was trying something nefarious – grant a vote on the resolution but then crush it and bar any future votes – evolved into a belief that the move had been driven by “muscle memory,” as both Democratic and Republican party leaders had consistently confronted efforts to use the War Powers Act with counter efforts to limit its use.

And yet, it still remains entirely unclear what the real “mission” is in Syria. The Trump administration had said it was to “secure the oil” – while Biden has pushed a ‘counter-ISIS’ focus.

But many analysts have pointed to the real underlying reason of the US wanting to keep squeezing Damascus by controlling the country’s natural resources (US troops are occupying the country’s oil and gas fields in the northeast) at a moment crippling sanctions have been ratcheted up. Or in other words, despite President Assad having emerged victorious in the decade long war, this is all a remnant part of Washington’s regime change playbook.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The White House is asking Congress for a whopping $886.4 billion military budget for the fiscal year 2024, with $842 billion of it going to the Pentagon. The rest would go toward other federal agencies’ military spending, including the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons program.

The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act will likely be much higher than the White House request as Congress added tens of billions to the previous two military budgets. For 2023, President Biden requested $813 billion, but Congress added $45 billion, bringing the finalized NDAA to $858 billion.

Congress could easily bring the 2024 NDAA to over $900 billion, closing in on the $1 trillion mark. The NDAAs don’t include the funds authorized for the Ukraine war, which could add another $100 billion if the US keeps spending on the conflict at the same pace.

In a statement on the request, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the funds were needed to confront China, which the Pentagon has identified as its top priority.

“The President’s budget request provides the resources necessary to address the pacing challenge from the People’s Republic of China, address advanced and persistent threats, accelerate innovation and modernization, and ensure operational resiliency amidst our changing climate,” Austin, a former Raytheon board member, said in a statement.

According to Responsible Statecraft, more than half of the budget will likely go to defense contractors, with Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon getting the biggest chunk.

We may be looking at $1 trillion in defense spending for the first time ever—this is madness.

NEW @WilliamHartung in @RStatecraft on Biden’s whopping $886B defense budget request https://t.co/Nu3FnXxFy8 pic.twitter.com/WpUaTirSno

— Quincy Institute (@QuincyInst) March 9, 2023

The budget includes $170 billion for weapons procurement and $145 billion for the research and development of new arms. “We may be looking at $1 trillion in defense spending for the first time ever—this is madness,” Responsible Statecraft writes.

The unseasonably warm weather in January and February was too good to be true to stick around. Old Man Winter returned this month in the Northeast, as temperatures have been freezing this past week in New York City. A powerful nor’easter early next week could bring a burst of wintery precipitation to the region. 

The storm will traverse the Midwest this weekend and might become a nor’easter that travels up the East Coast on Monday, according to The Weather Channel. These types of storms are notorious for wind, snow, rain, and coastal flooding. 

Here’s the forecasted timeline of the storm:

Later Sunday: Light s​now could spread into the interior Northeast and New England. Rain may be favored farther south, especially near the coast of the mid-Atlantic.

Monday: Snow, possibly heavy, will fall in the interior Northeast with rain closer to the Interstate 95 corridor from southeastern New England to the mid-Atlantic. Winds will likely increase along much of the Northeast Seaboard.

Tuesday: Snow, possibly heavy, will fall in most of New England, and parts of upstate, central and possibly western New York. That could mix with or change to rain in parts of southern and coastal New England. Strong winds are expected, particularly in coastal New England, but also in much of the Northeast.

The most probable area for accumulating snow is the interior Northeast, from central New York state to western and northern New England. Snowfall amounts may decline in regions closer to the Interstate 95 corridor from downtown New York City to Boston, where the weather event could be just rain. 

Weather experts on Twitter are chatting about nor’easter. 

4 days out, we have excellent agreement from our two best long-range models for a high-impact Nor’easter Monday PM to Wed AM. High elevations are best bet for 1-2 feet of heavy snow. Coastal cities mostly rain. High winds will also be an issue for Coastal New England. pic.twitter.com/jxJcuZmgPx

— Bill Karins (@BillKarins) March 10, 2023

Model differences for next week’s Nor’easter pic.twitter.com/kxACLl6e10

— Steve Petyerak (@StevePetyerak) March 10, 2023

Stormy pattern across the USA. Another atmospheric river on the way for the west coast, and potential nor’easter early next week. pic.twitter.com/buROtmQp6g

— Praedictix Weather (@Praedictix) March 11, 2023

Tuesday into early Wednesday is when winds are expected to increase along the Eastern Seaboard. 

When a nor’easter is forecasted to form, it captures everyone’s attention. However, the storm’s trajectory and impacts are still uncertain. 

Authored by Raghuram Rajan, op-ed via The Financial Times,

In his testimony to Congress earlier this week, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell indicated “the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated” and “restoring price stability will probably require that we maintain a restrictive stance for some time”.

This was the tough Fed on display, and markets accordingly tanked.

Yet a few weeks earlier, Powell had set the financial markets off to the races when he said, “We can now say, for the first time, the disinflationary process has started.” Financial markets, used to years of easy money, celebrate at the slightest indication that the Fed will soften policy, making its task harder. Yet they are not the only market that is not currently co-operating.

Labour markets have, if anything, become even tighter, despite the Fed raising interest rates by 450 basis points since last March, and Friday’s strong jobs numbers did not alleviate concerns. While goods production is slowing after the pandemic increased consumption significantly, services, which are more labour-intensive, are now picking up strongly. Workers are hard to find, especially when it comes to hospitality and leisure. One reason is that the labour force is missing 3.5mn workers relative to pre-Covid projections. Older workers understandably quit during the pandemic, and many did not return. Retirements still continue at an accelerated pace. And tragically, as Powell pointed out, Covid-19 also ended the lives of half a million workers in the US, while a slower rate of immigration has led to about a million fewer workers than expected.

In addition, given the difficult nature of jobs in leisure and hospitality, workers have sought opportunities elsewhere in the economy. And perhaps as importantly, companies have been holding on to their staff precisely because hiring has been so hard. Until they are confident that the economy will slow down and they will not need these workers, and also perhaps until they see enough unemployment around them to signal that hiring will not be difficult in the future, labour hoarding may continue.

Other markets are also treading water. For instance, US house sales have slowed considerably, but property prices have generally held up, probably because there is not much supply entering the market. With mortgage rates having risen by so much over the past year, a homeowner with a 30-year mortgage at 4 per cent will have to shell out much more in monthly payments if she upgrades to a slightly better house with a new mortgage at 7 per cent. Because she cannot afford to buy, she does not sell. And because this is limiting the supply of homes on the market, there is only modest downward pressure on prices.

Finally, inflation has been trending down because pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and war-induced commodity supply disruptions are now being sorted out.

Beliefs in a painless “immaculate disinflation” and soft landing lead to a self-reinforcing equilibrium, in which few believe the Fed will have to do much more. As a result workers are not being laid off, financial asset prices and housing are holding up, and households have the jobs and wealth to keep spending. But without some slack in the labour market, the Fed cannot feel comfortable pausing its efforts.

To get the job done, therefore, the Fed has to force markets to abandon their belief that disinflation will involve only mild job losses. Indeed a recent study by Stephen Cecchetti and others suggests that every disinflation since the 1950s has involved a significant rise in unemployment.

There are dangers in the Fed taking a soft landing with mild job losses off the menu of possible outcomes.

The first, evidenced by the questioning Powell underwent during his Congressional testimony, is that politicians will be irate if the Fed torpedoes a recovery they have just bought with trillions of dollars in fiscal spending. The central bank is not immune from Congressional wrath.

Second, the benign equilibrium may turn into a vicious one. The markets could have their Wile E. Coyote moment. Lay-offs may spur more lay-offs now that businesses are confident they can hire back if necessary. In turn, laid-off employees may be forced to sell their houses, depressing property prices and reducing household wealth. Unemployment and lower wealth may hurt household spending, which will in turn depress corporate profits. That will lead to more lay-offs, falling financial markets and financial sector stress, and yet more muted spending . . . We may end up with a deeper recession than currently anticipated because it is hard to get just a little unemployment.

Of course, the Fed could then revive the economy by cutting rates, but it will need to be wary of doing so until it sees enough slack build up in the labour market. If it turns too fast, markets will celebrate and the job will be left unfinished. But if it waits until there is sufficient slack, lay-offs could develop a momentum of their own.

The temptation then is for the Fed to be more ambiguous, keep a soft landing on the menu and pray for an immaculate disinflation.

If so, the Cecchetti study warns that the eventual unemployment needed to rein in inflation could be much higher.

The Fed’s only realistic options may be a hard landing and a harder landing. It may be time for it to choose.

Yesterday afternoon, after the equity market close, USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle revealed that $3.3 billion of its $40 billion reserves were tied up in now-failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

Specifically, on March 9, Circle initiated a wire transfer to remove its funds from SVB as the FDIC-insured bank was about to shut operations. However, two days later, on March 11, Circle confirmed that the wire transfers were not wholly processed, with $3.3 billion of USDC reserves still with SVB.

2/ Like other customers and depositors who relied on SVB for banking services, Circle joins calls for continuity of this important bank in the U.S. economy and will follow guidance provided by state and Federal regulators.

— Circle (@circle) March 11, 2023

Almost immediately, leading crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase both said that they would temporarily suspend USDC conversions as the contagion from the collapse of SVB plays out.

Citing “current market conditions” without naming Silicon Valley Bank, Binance said it has temporarily suspended auto-conversion of USDC to BUSD.

Binance has temporarily suspended auto-conversion of USDC to BUSD due to current market conditions, specifically related to high inflows & the increasing burden to support the conversion.

This is a normal risk-management procedural step to take while we monitor the situation.

— Binance (@binance) March 11, 2023

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, also said it would suspend USDC conversion to USD while banks are closed over the weekend.

We are temporarily pausing USDC:USD conversions over the weekend while banks are closed. During periods of heightened activity, conversions rely on USD transfers from the banks that clear during normal banking hours. When banks open on Monday, we plan to re-commence conversions.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 11, 2023

USDC prices fell almost immediately, dramatically breaking the $1 peg, trading as low as 87c to the $1 at one point but currently ‘stabilized’ around 90c.

As CoinTelegraph reports, according to Dante Disparte, the chief strategy officer and head of global policy for Circle, SVB is critical to the United States economy and warned that “its failure – without a federal rescue plan – will have broader implications for business, banking and entrepreneurs.

“As with Silvergate, our teams have worked at speed to limit any exposure to banks. This includes a wire transfer request made before SVB’s FDIC receivership. A $3.3 billion cash exposure remains — but we follow state and federal regulatory guidance.”

Crypto investors redeemed more than $2 billion in Circle’s stablecoin in the past 24 hours, according to blockchain data provider Nansen as of 10 p.m. ET on Friday. The pace of USD Coin redemptions accelerated through Friday, with most of the USD Coin burned in the last eight hours, Nansen said.

As WSJ reports, some crypto executives questioned whether Circle has enough assets to cover its liabilities.

“Are you solvent?” David Schwartz, chief technology officer at crypto company Ripple, asked on Twitter in response to a post from Circle.

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of Tether, said the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin doesn’t have any exposure to Silicon Valley Bank.

Tether has a market cap of around $72 billion, down from $74 billion late Friday, while USD Coin’s market cap is roughly $38 billion, down from about $41 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Additionally, following USDC’s depegging, the stablecoin ecosystem immediately came under pressure, as DAI, USDD and FRAX also depegged from the U.S. dollar.

Finally, as CoinDesk notes, if SVB customers, including Circle and its USDC stablecoin, are forced to take a haircut on their money, the repercussions are unclear.

In fact, as Colin Wu writes at Substack, USDC’s fate may indeed depend on whether Silicon Valley Bank can be acquired…

The bad news is that the fate of USDC is not determined by Circle but by Silicon Valley Bank.

If a large financial institution ultimately chooses to acquire Silicon Valley Bank, the illiquidity and bank runs faced by Silicon Valley Bank and Circle will also be resolved. However, if Silicon Valley Bank is ultimately bankrupted and liquidated, although it still has a strong debt-paying ability literally from the current balance sheet, the final outcome is not optimistic considering the potential massive losses from asset liquidation. Circle cannot guarantee that it will receive $1.5 billion or more. Moreover, the liquidation of a bank is too long to wait, and Circle cannot wait for that long now!

If Silicon Valley Bank is ultimately liquidated, Circle’s liquidity losses of $3.3 billion will be confirmed immediately. Although the loss of $3.3 billion seems to account for only 8% of total assets, from the perspective of accounting views, it is enough to make Circle’s net assets below zero. Currently, Circle’s liability side (stablecoins in circulation, valued at 1:1 US dollar) is $44.5 billion, while the asset side (cash reserves and short-term bonds) is only $44.6 billion. This means that a $3.3 billion cash reserve loss will completely turn USDC into a company with net assets of -$3.2 billion. Whether there exist companies in today’s Silicon Valley and Wall Street that are willing to accept such a company on the brink of bankruptcy is a big question. After the FTX go bankrupt, I believe that white knights will be more cautious in considering high capital cost in current economic environments before extending a helping hand.

If Silicon Valley Bank is not eventually subject to bankruptcy liquidation, Circle’s $3.3 billion loss will not be finally confirmed. In that case, the price of USDC will quickly return to its normal price (1USDC:1USD), or even a temporary premium caused by short-squeezing.

As for whether Silicon Valley Bank will ultimately be acquired, I hold an uncertain attitude, with the probability being roughly between 50% and 50%. The motivation for acquisition is very clear, namely to rebuild market confidence in financial institutions, avoid risks spreading further between banks and companies, and ensure that the financial system is robust enough to continue raising interest rates. The reason for not being acquired is also very simple: Silicon Valley Bank is not a systemically important bank, unlike Bear Stearns or Merrill Lynch. It is only a regional small and medium-sized bank and will not affect the overall financial system’s stability.

But I prefer to believe that facilitating an acquisition will be the most critical task for the Fed and the New York Fed this weekend. The Fed will not stop raising interest rates until it achieves its price stability target. For now, they are more afraid of being caught in a dilemma: fully raising interest rates (50 basis points) would resonate with Silicon Valley Bank’s bankruptcy and cause more small and medium-sized bank runs; insufficient interest rate increases (25 basis points) would deviate from the equilibrium interest rate and be difficult to control overheating of the economy, possibly leading to the worst scenario of wage and price spirals. To avoid this problem, the Fed’s only option now is to minimize the impact of Silicon Valley Bank’s bankruptcy on the overall economy, encourage the acquisition through mediation, and reach the equilibrium interest rate based on economic data.

And it can be certain that so far, large banks’ cash reserves are relatively sufficient and have enough strength to acquire Silicon Valley Bank.

We do believe the final fate of Silicon Valley Bank will be announced to the public before the opening of the Asian stock market on Monday. And its fate will also directly affect the final judgement of Circle and USDC.

So who, if anyone, will step in?

When Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan tweeted late Friday that Twitter should buy SVB and turn into a digital bank, billionaire Elon Musk tweeted in reply, “I’m open to the idea.”

Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,

The UK’s largest oil and gas producer, Harbour Energy, is cutting investments and jobs after the new windfall tax on the industry sapped nearly all of its 2022 profits.

Harbour Energy’s profits last year were $2.5 billion, pre-tax, but after taxes, the company was left with just an $8 million profit – that’s after the $1.5 billion that needed to go towards the Energy Profits Levy.

Harbour Energy has not divulged how many workers will lose their jobs.

Harbour Energy said it has cut back on investments, too, with Harbour choosing not to move forward on two drill sites and declining to participate in the North Sea offshore licensing round.

The windfall tax has hit UK North Sea producers, many which have already announced reduced investments on the UK Continental Shelf, the new head of trade body Offshore Energies UK said last month.

The UK raised the windfall tax on oil and gas operators’ profits last autumn by 10 percentage points, to 35 percent.

The increased rate for the Energy Profits Levy went into effect on January 1 of this year. It was also extended into March 2028, from December 2025.

The additional levies increased the total tax rate on oil and gas companies to 75 percent – the highest of any industry in the UK.

Shell has said it is reevaluating all of its UK projects which make up $30 billion of investments, and TotalEnergies has also said it would cut investments in the UK by 25 percent.

Oil and gas companies saw a substantial increase in profits last year thanks to higher oil and gas prices amid geopolitical turmoil and tight markets.

Women in Berlin, Germany will soon be able to whip off their tops at the city’s public swimming pools following a policy change by local government in response to a woman’s complaint that she was discriminated against.

The women argued that females, like men, should be able to swim topless, according to a statement from the city’s senate for justice, diversity and anti-discrimination.

In response to the local ombudsman’s involvement in the case, Berliner Baederbetriebe, which operates the city’s public pools, changed its rules on acceptable clothing.

“The ombudsperson’s office very much welcomes the decision of the Baederbetriebe, because it establishes equal rights for all Berliners, whether male, female or non-binary, and because it also creates legal certainty for the staff at the Baederbetriebe,” said Doris Liebscher, the head of the ombudsperson’s office, AP reports.

“Now it is important that the regulation is applied consistently and that no more expulsions or house bans are issued.”

It wasn’t made clear exactly when the rules go into effect.

Via The Cradle,

Saudi Arabia has asked the US for help with developing a “civilian nuclear program” and for fewer restrictions on arms purchases in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel, the New York Times reports.

Normalization between Tel Aviv and Riyadh would fulfill several goals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chief among them “downgrading the relative importance of the Palestinian issue,” analysts told the NYT. “I certainly believe that the peace agreement between us and the Saudis will lead to an agreement with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu told Italian daily La Repubblica on 9 March.

Such a deal would also be the most significant step yet towards fulfilling Netanyahu’s promise to expand on the Trump-era Abraham Accords signed between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

While Saudi Arabia has yet to sign the normalization agreement officially – citing its ‘concern’ for the mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories – the country has already opened its airspace to Israeli flights and has hosted Israeli business people and officials over the past few years.

Nonetheless, questions remain about the viability of the kingdom’s latest demands due to the frosty relationship between Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and US President Joe Biden. US officials are reportedly also wary of Riyadh’s nuclear aspirations, as this could be the first step towards developing nuclear weapons.

Moreover, even if a backroom deal is reached, the NYT claims Biden is likely to face pushback from congress, as over the past year, several lawmakers have pressed the White House to downgrade relations with Saudi Arabia. “Our relationship with Saudi Arabia has to be a direct bilateral relationship… It should not run through Israel,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy told the NYT.

“The Saudis have been consistently behaving badly, over and over,” he added before saying that selling more weapons to the kingdom should come “in exchange for better behavior toward the United States, not just better behavior toward Israel.”

The decades-long relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia took a dramatic plunge last year following the start of the war in Ukraine, as the kingdom, alongside a large majority of countries worldwide, refused to cut ties with Russia.

Saudi seeks security guarantees from the US & Israel at same time as it re-establishes relations with #Iran thanks to #China

KSA asks for civilian nuclear program & fewer restrictions on U.S. arms sales as price for normalizing relations with #Israelhttps://t.co/cHwMHyILkO https://t.co/uEAmqBrfCP

— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) March 10, 2023

Washington was further pushed to the brink after the OPEC+ group of countries – including Saudi Arabia and Russia – announced a major oil production cut despite US officials’ intense lobbying of Gulf states.

Despite all of this, the Biden White House approved several new arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year, ignoring his campaign promises to make the kingdom a “pariah” and the calamity US bombs have caused in Yemen. Last year, Biden also gave MbS immunity for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi after the crown prince was named prime minister.

Despite ongoing tensions with the Russian Defense Ministry, private security firm Wagner is going on a recruiting blitz, fresh off battlefield successes in Ukraine’s east, notably in Soledar and now Bakhmut. 

Head of the mercenary group and personal friend of Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Friday announced the openings of recruitment centers in dozens of cities throughout Russia. The firm’s methods have come under controversy and scrutiny for the practice of recruiting from prisons, often sending violent convicts to the front lines and in return promising them freedom.

“Recruitment centers for PMC Wagner have opened in 42 Russian cities,” Prigozhin announced. He described that sports centers and martial arts clubs in particular will serve as fresh recruiting grounds. 

“Despite the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will move forward,” the 61-year-old said. Prigozhin continued referencing rising tensions with the defense ministry: “Despite the spanners that they are throwing in the works at every turn, we will overcome this together,” he said.

Internal military tensions were highest following the Russian victory over Soledar, given Wagner was the first to claim victory, but without acknowledging the role of the regular army. This led to unprecedented public criticism of Wagner, which is viewed by Russian commanders as increasingly going rogue and being uncooperative, as well as not ‘playing by the rules’.

Prigozhin also within the last month lashed out at the military for not sharing ammunition even as Wagner fighters are often spearheading vital operations. After the dispute rose to the level of international media attention, it appears the Kremlin is officially distancing itself: 

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries, on Thursday said he has been cut off from all Russian government communication channels.

In a message posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin claimed he had been blocked by the Kremlin due to his public appeals for his Wagner troops to be provided with more ammunition.

Newsweek notes his words as follows: “In order to stop me from asking for ammunition, they turned off all special [government] phone lines in all of the offices and [Wagner] units … and blocked all [my] passes to the agencies responsible for making decisions.”

Wagner filmed a destroyed American M-113 from the 93rd UKR mechanized brigade. It appears some of those riding inside did not meet a good ending. pic.twitter.com/AhQctcyvJA

— Koba (@Roberto05246129) March 10, 2023

But the angry back-and-forth between Wagner and military officials is unlikely to let up anytime soon, given Prigozhin previewed his next actions: “Now I can only ask [for more supplies] through the media and… most likely will be doing just that.”

Authored by Dr. Sean Lin and Jacky Guan via The Epoch Times,

Since its establishment, the World Health Organization (WHO) has assumed the role of an advisory entity in the international health domain. Since 2005, the WHO established International Health Regulations (IHR) as the main compliance tool to ensure that public health emergencies would be handled swiftly. The COVID pandemic perfectly illustrates how powerful the WHO already is.

However, a new set of amendments (pdf) proposed by state members of the WHO was published at the end of 2022, seeking to enhance the WHO’s power under the guise of the IHR. This, in addition to a newly proposed Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) (pdf) and the addition of a pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (WHO CA+) clause (pdf) in the INB, raises several red flags on the paradigm shift the WHO is undertaking, from playing the role of an international health advisory body to becoming a global regime acting in the name of health.

From Patient-Doctor Relationship to Powerful Health Conglomerate

Throughout history, people have relied on connections with friends, family, and neighbors to maintain a healthy social life. This is important not only for wellness but also for building the trust upon which the foundation of relationships lies. Just as it is vital in relationships with family and friends, in regard to health, trust is vital in patient-doctor relationships.

Doctors across many countries and diverse regions have a plethora of different methods to treat something as simple as a cold. Some may give you a flu shot, some may prescribe you some minor medication, and some might even tell you to drink hot soup and get lots of rest. There may also be an unfamiliar remedy from Latin America or Southeast Asia that works just as well as something you could pick up in a U.S. pharmacy. This is all to say that well-trained doctors know what they’re doing given the methods available to them.

The one-on-one patient-doctor relationship has traditionally been the tried-and-true way to establish a health system in any society. Even under evidence-based medicine, advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or other health agencies serves as nonbinding recommendations to doctors that give them the right to make their own decisions based on their knowledge of the patient.

People make their own final health-related decisions; hence, doctors need consent from their patients for treatment or surgeries. The trust people give to their doctors is sacred and demands that doctors practice medicine grounded in ethics and based on genuine medical knowledge, skills, and experience—all things that most doctors still have.

Notwithstanding what has been the norm for generations, the advancement of modern medicine and biotechnology has made the fields of health and medicine huge industries. As a result, the quality of health care has become increasingly dependent on the allocation of resources and distribution of wealth.

Big Pharma, powerful health agencies, and dominant health insurance enterprises are all intertwined, forming a tremendous conglomerate of power. In the name of protecting the people, this manifestation of power has reached an unprecedented level, which was on full display during the pandemic in the form of lockdowns, mandates, the rush of drugs and vaccines, insurance policies determining diagnosis, etc.

WHO: A Global Regime in the Name of Health?

Then we have international organizations like the WHO with a role many people deem too arbitrary to consider an eminent element in their life. It was created within the United Nations and historically played a coordinating role in global health issues and resources, in helping with public health threats like polio, AIDS, and COVID. However, its latest proposed reform raises a serious concern over whether the WHO is turning into a global quasi-regime.

The newest changes the WHO is facing are amendments to the International Health Regulations agreement. The World Health Assembly first adopted the IHR in 1969 to cover six diseases and it has since been revised several times. A fully updated version was implemented in 2005 after China’s SARS outbreak in 2003, after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) refused to maintain transparency during the outbreak. This 2005 edition of the IHR is now facing stark changes.

The IHR demands WHO nations detect, assess, report, and respond appropriately in regard to public health emergencies that can spread on an international scale. During the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during its onset, China demonstrated an aptitude for disinformation and a lack of transparency toward the international community with regard to sharing data, allowing a probe into the origins of the virus, and issues involving the most recent unprecedented spike of infections and death after the country lifted its zero-COVID restrictions.

Not unrelated to these international incidences, the WHO has published a number of amendments to the IHR that will strengthen the WHO’s power considerably pertaining to global health emergencies. For example, the WHO will have the power to act upon potential rather than actual emergencies, and allow the director-general of the WHO control over the production of medication that may be allocated as he or she deems fit.

One concern is that the WHO will have the authority to override health measure decisions made by individual nations and grant the organization the capacity to censor what it considers misinformation and disinformation, should the amendments be adopted. This is a serious threat to the sovereignty of every WHO member.

Another startling change was the removal of “respect for the dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of persons” in Article 3 of the IHR, replaced with the terms “equity” and “inclusivity.”

At the same time, the WHO’s new amendments change the advisory nature of the IHR to that of law, meaning that the organization will hold just as much power—if not more—compared with a governing body with legally binding jurisdiction and enforcement capabilities.

The aforementioned changes, and many more, are troubling because the amendments are vague in nature and leave much room for interpretation. For example, the amendments do not specify the amount of funding countries need to contribute, which could lead to an escalation of corruption in underdeveloped countries.

A Global Health Certificate System With Multiple Risks

During the pandemic, there have been a number of health certificate systems set up across some parts of North America, Europe, and other countries, yet none was as pervasive and heavily enforced as the health QR-code system in China. Throughout China’s three years of extreme zero-COVID measures, the color of a code on your phone decided whether you were allowed to leave the community grounds, eat in restaurants, or even be admitted to a hospital to give birth.

The QR-code system was able to track your movement and used an algorithm to determine if you were considered at risk of being infected. If you were at risk, your code would turn yellow and authorities would send you to a quarantine camp at your own expense. This QR-code system was also attached to your personal bank account so that your mandatory quarantine in a hotel could be paid for before you arrived.

Implemented by a regime that has little regard for human rights, codes were allegedly turned yellow or even red (indicating infection) for citizens who complained about the strict pandemic measures. Such an invasive system has immense potential to abolish privacy and self-determination, forcing residents to live under an Orwellian regime.

The superficial intent of the health certificate system is benign, yet it could be a convenient tool for driving the establishment of an overarching global government. It could be an integral component in achieving a globalist agenda without requiring support from the masses.

Health certificates are not the only thing the WHO wishes to add to the world government. The agency also demands an International Negotiating Body (INB) with the power of pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response incorporated into its duties.

The INB Might Be Another Excuse for Control

Citing the “catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity in response to the … pandemic” in its preamble, the zero draft for the INB initiated in 2022 and revised as of February 2023 calls for an international organization with authority exceeding some, if not most, governments across the world that is able to act in response to the next global health emergency.

At the same time, the INB also includes the “One Health” initiative, currently a five-year plan aimed at tackling zoonotic epidemics around the world. It can be interpreted that the INB would be the acting arm of the WHO “superpower,” while the IHR would provide the legal basis for the arbitrary government. Funding for these measures, as proposed, would come from the world bank.

While the WHO prepares to ballon its power with these amendments, one question begs an answer: Were people satisfied with how the organization handled the pandemic? Global public opinion seems to be divided on this topic. While European and North American developed nations seem to be supportive of the WHO’s efforts, some Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea are voicing their dissatisfaction.

Public opinion regarding how well the WHO handled the COVID-19 pandemic seems to vary among nations. (The Epoch Times)

Meanwhile, the policies the WHO is trying to enact are also sources of potent social tension and division. Many seem to be divided between enacting a private health passport and a government-operated health passport that can be used as proof of vaccination or for similar causes.

When asked about their stance on vaccine passports, 1,315 Americans were divided between deeming passports issued by the government and ones issued by private entities as acceptable. (The Epoch Times)

Like any good government with checks and balances, doesn’t the WHO also need an objective post-COVID evaluation before the amendments are adopted? This brings up the issues of what kind of supervising entity the WHO falls under, and whether legal mechanisms exist so the WHO can be held accountable should it fail to handle a critical public health crisis. These issues need to be addressed before any changes are adopted.

Therefore, one of the most pressing issues here might be the WHO’s lack of transparency and proposed accountability measures. The language used in the amendment document is extremely vague and leaves much room for interpretation. At the same time, there seems to be a concerning lack of checks and balances within the proposed new order.

All 194 nations in the WHO are set to vote on the amendments and finalize the new INB by May 2024, which could bring sweeping changes to the livelihood of generations to come. Have people been well-informed and educated about these changes? Shouldn’t there be more public and open debates for more transparency to show what is coming if the amendments are adopted? Why is the mainstream media not picking up on this?