Member states have agreed on a 32-page pact to improve global pandemic preparedness and response, addressing equity, technology sharing, and cooperation—five years after COVID-19 exposed critical failures | Years of negotiations culminated with countries agreeing the text of a landmark accord on how to tackle future pandemics, aimed at avoiding a repeat of the mistakes made during the Covid-19 crisis. After more than three years of talks and one last marathon session, weary delegates at the World Health Organization's headquarters sealed the deal at around 2:00 am (0000 GMT) Wednesday. [...] Five years after [the so-called] "Covid-19" [the military bio- weapon] ["the vax"] killed millions of people and devastated economies, a growing sense of urgency hung over the talks, with new health threats lurking, ranging from H5N1 bird flu to measles, mpox and Ebola.

■ WHO conducts a 2-day pandemic simulation called ‘Exercise Polaris’ – bringing together 350 predatory health groups worldwide (04/16/25)

In the most detailed account of her detention to date, Ozturk describes what followed after masked agents dragged her off the street—repeated asthma attacks, being asked if she was a “terrorist,” and confinement in filthy, overcrowded cells. | Rumeysa Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar currently detained at a facility in Louisiana, recounts her experience following her arrest by ICE agents on May 25, in a sworn declaration obtained by TRT World. The document, exclusively available to TRT World, was filed in federal court by her lawyers on April 10. ● Ozturk, 30, was detained shortly after her name and photo appeared on Canary Mission, an anonymously run blacklist site that claims to document individuals who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel, and Jews” on college campuses and beyond. [...] A Turkish citizen, Ozturk is among hundreds of students and professors profiled by Canary Mission since 2015 for expressing views the site deems anti-Israel or antisemitic. Other individuals recently spotlighted include Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil on March 8 and Mohsen Mahdawi in the latest, on April 14.

■ The Zionist Destruction of American Higher Education (04/01/25)

WARNING AND THREAT BY MS. KALLAS ARE DISRESPECTFUL AND I STRONGLY OBJECT TO THEM.

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, is warning EU leaders against participating in the May celebrations of Victory Day in Moscow. She claims that such participation will… pic.twitter.com/KsHGJtOVRO

— Robert Fico 🇸🇰 (@RobertFicoSVK) April 15, 2025

Russia has slammed the EU for warning candidate states against attending WWII celebrations on May 9 | Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday that the EU’s attempts to pressure candidate states not to attend the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II in Moscow are tantamount to a revival of Nazism. ● On Monday, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned the leaders of EU members and candidate states against taking part in the event in the Russian capital on May 9. British daily The Telegraph later wrote that candidate states such as Serbia could be barred from joining the bloc if their leaders attend the Victory Day celebrations. [...] The Telegraph wrote that EU officials warned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who has indicated that he would attend the May 9 parade, that the visit would derail his country’s accession to the bloc. [...] Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, the only EU member state leader who has indicated he will attend, slammed her statement as “disrespectful” and potentially a form of blackmail.

■ EU pressuring Serbia’s Vucic not to visit Moscow (RT)
■ ‘It’s 2025, not 1939’ – Fico challenges EU’s warning against Moscow trip (RT)

■ Zakharova brands Ukraine’s bid to host EU leaders on May 9 'theatre of absurd' (TASS) | Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Ukraine’s possible invitation of European Union leaders to Kiev on May 9 a "theatre of the absurd." Zelensky stated that he was ready or could invite representatives of the European Union countries or heads of the European Union countries to Kiev for the event.

US President Donald Trump has again threatened China with increasing duties, this time to 245%. This statement was published on the official website of the White House. | According to the source, Trump imposed a 10% duty on all countries and set higher individual tariffs for those with the largest trade deficit with the United States. ● More than 75 countries have approached the White House with proposals for new trade agreements. As a result, the imposition of individual increased tariffs was temporarily suspended, with the exception of China, which responded with similar measures. (Translation: DeepL) (Original)

■ US threatens China with 245% tariff (RT)
■ US Playing Hardball: Restrict China’s Access in Exchange for Fewer Tariffs on Allies (Sputnik)
✅ War by other means — Trump’s tariffs and the empire’s final gamble (Thomas Fazi)

Iskander Lutsko, the Dubai-based head of research and portfolio management at Istar Capital, noted a visible thaw in relations between Moscow and Washington, which, in his view, also played a role in making the Russian currency more attractive to investors | The Russian ruble has strengthened against the dollar by 38% in over-the-counter trading since the beginning of the year, becoming the world's most profitable currency due to the US dollar weakening amid new American duties, Bloomberg reported, citing economists. ● "Unlike many emerging-market currencies, the ruble is not facing pressure from capital outflow, caused by global investors’ retreat from riskier assets," Sofya Donets, an economist at T-Investments, told the agency.

■ WHO conducts a two-day pandemic simulation, Exercise Polaris, involving over 15 countries and 20 health agencies.
■ The exercise tests a new global coordination mechanism for health emergencies, bringing together predatory public health officials and organization that seek to implement a bio-surveillance state.
■ These simulations, advertised as preparedness, actually mask global bio-terror propaganda campaigns and totalitarian pursuits.
■ These simulations are designed to maximize compliance with predatory vaccine programs that are already in development.
■ Psychopaths at WHO failed to get their bird flu pandemic in 2024 and 2025, and are trying to come up with new ways to submit populations to their plans.

A senior Chinese official warned Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s tariffs would backfire and that soon, “those peasants in the U.S.” would “wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.” | The remarks are the latest Chinese repudiation of Trump’s global trade war as Beijing shifts gears from attempting to communicate with the White House to hitting back frequently and forcefully in an effort to cast the United States as an irresponsible global power. ● China’s top official overseeing Hong Kong and Macao, Xia Baolong (shown above), lashed out at the U.S. during a speech on national security, in which he linked 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong with what Beijing sees as continued U.S. efforts to suppress China. Xia called the U.S. decision to levy a tariff of 145 percent on all goods from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China...

💬 “...brutally unreasonable and extremely shameless.” ● “The U.S. isn’t after our tariffs but our very survival,” he said. “The U.S. has repeatedly contained and suppressed Hong Kong … and this will eventually backfire on itself.”

Since Trump took office in January and set about remaking the global trading system, the world’s two largest economies have levied import duties on each other that are now so high they amount to a trade embargo. ● China has countered Washington’s latest levies by imposing a tariff of 125 percent on all U.S. goods while Trump has maintained 145 percent taxes on all Chinese imports, with temporary exceptions for semiconductors and consumer electronics.

Kit Klarenberg | Given these findings, the overwhelming majority of governments the world over now have a clear legal obligation to do anything and everything in their power to halt the Zionist entity’s obliteration of Gaza and its people. | On March 22nd, this journalist detailed the findings of a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on “Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023.” That investigation focused primarily on the hideous, industrial scale rape and sexual abuse of male and female Palestinian detainees in Zionist Occupation Force prisons, a phenomenon so pervasive it can only be dedicated, determined policy, signed off upon and directed by the highest levels of the Israeli government. ■ Reinforcing that horrifying conclusion, buried within the Commission’s report are bombshell passages unequivocally charging the Zionist entity with deliberately committing “genocidal acts” in Gaza, consciously and intentionally “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group.” The details provided are irresistibly persuasive, and point to Israel being in flagrant breach of both the Rome Statute, and Genocide Convention. In a truly just world, the mainstream media’s mass omertà on this landmark ruling would in itself be a criminal act.

Exact details of the shipment are unclear, but Ynet reports it includes 3,000 munitions for Israel's Air Force | The Israeli military is set to receive a “major new weapons shipment” from the US in the coming weeks to help prepare it for continued operations in Gaza and a potential attack on Iran, the Israeli news site Ynet reported on Monday. ● The details of the arms shipment are unclear, but Ynet said it would include 3,000 munitions for Israel’s Air Force. The report said the bomb shipment was recently approved by the Trump administration. ● The Pentagon’s Defense Cooperation Agency said on Monday that the State Department approved a $180 million arms deal for Eitan Powerpack Engines that will go to Israel, but it did not announce any new bomb shipments.

■ Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill 38 Palestinians Over 24 Hours (Antiwar.com)
✅ Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics (Belén Fernández)

Abhishek G Bhaya | As anti-Muslim hatred spreads across continents, experts warn that Islamophobia, a modern-day manifestation of racism, is not just a Muslim issue but a crisis threatening the foundations of democracy, human rights, and pluralism. | International experts on Sunday issued a clarion call for urgent global action against what they described as a rapidly worsening phenomenon – at a session titled ‘Confronting Discrimination and Racism in the 21st Century’ on the concluding day of the fourth Antalya Diplomacy Forum at the Turkish Mediterranean resort city.

✅ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)

Military bloc members want the country’s government to remain a “Nazi regime” hostile to Russia, the foreign minister has said | European NATO states are working to sustain a “Russophobic” regime in Ukraine by finding another “half-Fuhrer” to replace Vladimir Zelensky, should he be ousted, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. ● In an interview published on Monday by Kommersant, Lavrov stated that while Western powers are talking about sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, they are actually trying to strengthen the anti-Russian foothold in the country, instead of seeking a real settlement.

💬 “They have come up with a ‘resilience force’... In other words, in order to maintain Ukraine’s resilience, they are not going to send blockade troops... but the military of ‘civilized’ Western countries,” Lavrov explained. ● “Europe will do everything to ensure the regime does not change in its essence,” Lavrov said. “They’ll find some new half-Fuhrer… but the essence of the regime will remain.”

These troops will protect “the same regime” he said, adding that even if European NATO members agree to allow a new election in Ukraine, they will make every effort to make sure that the political landscape remains the same. ● Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but the Ukrainian leader refused to call new elections, citing martial law. Russia has declared him “illegitimate,” claiming that under these circumstances, the true legal authority lies with the Ukrainian parliament.

The move comes after the university rejected the US administration’s request for policy changes | The administration of US President Donald Trump has announced it is freezing more than more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University, after the Ivy League school rejected a list of demands from the White House. ● A major clash between the administration and some of the country’s top universities has been unfolding in response to how the pro-Palestinian student protests that erupted on campuses last year were handled. Since taking office, Trump has stepped up pressure on universities to address anti-Semitism and dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. [...] Harvard rejected the demands on Monday, accusing the White House of attempting to “control” its community.

The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which manages the hospital, strongly condemned the attack | Early Sunday morning, the Israeli military bombed the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, putting the medical facility out of service. ● According to Middle East Eye, Gaza’s Civil Defense said the bombing caused “the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units.” The strike damaged other buildings, including the adjoining St. Phillip’s Church. ● The Civil Defense said the strike hit the hospital “minutes” after the Israeli military ordered the hospital to be evacuated. Eyewitnesses told MEE that they only had 18 minutes to leave the hospital.

■ Israel bombs Gaza City's last fully-functioning hospital (MEE)
■ Palestinian family of 10 erased in overnight Israeli strike on Khan Younis (MEE)

Israel hates America. pic.twitter.com/4rLK3WNYT2

— Seima kapur (@SeemaJai3) February 2, 2023

Investigators believe Nikita Casap killed his parents to fund a plan to assassinate the US president and frame Russia | A Wisconsin teenager accused of murdering his parents had also plotted to assassinate US President Donald Trump and flee overseas while framing Russia for the crime, according to an unsealed FBI affidavit. ● Nikita Casap, 17, was charged last month with first-degree murder after police found the bodies of his mother and stepfather, both shot in the head, inside their Waukesha home. He was arrested in Kansas after fleeing in a stolen vehicle with $14,000 in cash, passports, and the family dog. Officers also recovered an unloaded revolver, boxes of ammunition, and two cell phones during the traffic stop.

💬 “Casap appears to have written a manifesto calling for the assassination of the President of the United States. He was in touch with other parties about his plan to kill the President and overthrow the government of the United States,” the warrant unsealed on Friday stated. ● “The killing of his parents appeared to be an effort to obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary to carry out his plan,” it added.

The FBI alleges that Casap paid, at least in part, for a drone and explosives intended for use as a “weapon of mass destruction.” The affidavit states the equipment was meant to support the planned attack. ● Messages uncovered on his phone showed Casap discussing the plot with an unidentified user on Telegram. On January 21, he asked, “What country will be blamed for the crime?” The user replied, “Russia will be blamed for it, this is the goal.”

An unchecked influx of foreigners “will lead to the destruction of any country that allows it,” according to Tesla’s CEO | An influx of immigrants has created the risk of a spike in terrorism in Western Europe, characterized by widespread mass killings, Elon Musk has said. ● According to data from the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA), more than 500,000 asylum applications were filed in the bloc in the first half of 2024, roughly the same as during the same period the previous year. Some 24% were submitted in Germany, followed by Italy and Spain with 17% each. ● During his video address to the congress of the Italian rightist Lega Nord (Northern League) party in Florence on Sunday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said “mass migration is a crazy thing.”

Simplicius | Spiegel published a quite eye-opening piece yesterday, which reveals the long-kept truth about the performance of German weapons systems in real wartime conditions | The report cites “an internal paper of the Bundeswehr” about the real practicality of Germany’s top weapons. We can assume that the very same results extend to the entire constellation of NATO weaponry in general, since they are virtually all constructed with the same design philosophies, often even with interoperable systems—like the 120mm Rheinmetall tank barrels shared between the Abrams and Leopard series.

People of Rafah ordered to move to al-Mawasi – now occupation is killing them there too, not for the first time, and again targeting mainly children | Last week, Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of people living in Rafah, southern Gaza, to move to the tiny supposed ‘safe zone’ of al-Mawasi, a wasteland filled with the tents of refugees. Following its pattern throughout the more than five hundred days of its genocide, it then started bombing them there – including the use of US-made ‘mother of all bombs’ heavy munitions. And tonight it is bombing them again – and again it has killed and wounded mainly children.

✅ Israel is About to Empty Gaza (Chris Hedges)

US President Donald Trump said after a meeting between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that the Iran talks were going "OK," Reuters reported. | On Saturday, indirect talks were held in the Omani capital of Muscat between Araghchi and Witkoff. According to Witkoff, the talks between Iran and the United States in Oman were positive and constructive. Araghchi also called the atmosphere of these talks constructive and calm, thanked the Omani foreign minister for his efforts in exchanging views between the Iranian and US delegations, and announced that the second round of talks between Iran and the US would be held on Saturday, April 19.

■ Tehran, Washington to hold second round of talks in Oman on April 19 (TASS)
■ Iran and US unveil results of nuclear talks (RT)
■ Russia-US negotiations progress towards lifting American sanctions —Jeffrey Sachs (TASS)
✅ Iran-US tensions: There's no room for further miscalculations (Marco Carnelos)

Proper conditions will be created for the migrant laborers from the South Asian country, the Belarusian president has said | Belarus will soon accept up to 150,000 migrant workers from Pakistan, the Eastern European country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has said. Lukashenko made the announcement after a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Minsk on Friday. ● The Belarusian leader said that Sharif and him had agreed that “in the near future [Pakistani] specialists in various fields will be sent [to Belarus]; the fields of our choosing. The leadership of Pakistan will help us select such people.”

Freedom from ‘secretive, unscrupulous’ party and its treacherous leadership is ‘liberating’, says exonerated ex-member | A Jewish former Labour party member has won his appeal against the party’s decision to expel him for supposed ‘antisemitism’ – but has found his freedom from the ‘secretive, unscrupulous’ organisation so liberating that he is not going back. ● The man, who is not being named, has been exonerated by Labour’s ‘Independent Complaints Board’ (ICB) in a damning finding that concludes the party is still ignoring the 2020 findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which criticised Labour’s lack of transparency, shoddy processes and disregard for evidence. ● The result is even more damning in light of the fact that Keir Starmer gave pro-Israel groups a veto over who can sit on the ‘independent’ ICB and left-wing Jewish groups have been excluded.

A recent analysis conducted by the United Nations has revealed that at least 36 Israeli strikes on Gaza between March 18 and April 9 have only resulted in the killing of Palestinian women and children. | The UN on Friday reported that “a large percentage of fatalities are children and women,” and hundreds of strikes have hit residential buildings and tents since Israel broke the 2-month ceasefire with Hamas on March 18.

💬 “Between March 18 and April 9, 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva. ● “In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children,” she said. ● “Overall, a large percentage of fatalities are children and women, according to information recorded by our Office,” she added.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 50,912 Palestinians were killed, and 115,981 were wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, which began in October 2023. The Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

A key Ukrainian foreign affairs official wants to see Steve Witkoff sacked | US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who has played a central role in opening negotiations on resolving the Ukraine conflict, is “spreading Russian propaganda” and should be sacked, according to a senior Ukrainian lawmaker. ● The head of the Kiev’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Aleksandr Merezhko, made the remark in response to Witkoff’s interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, during which the envoy spoke about the status of former Ukrainian territories that have joined Russia, describing the issue as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.”

💬 “They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff said. ● “The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Can [Vladimir] Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” he added.

Merezhko strongly condemned the “disgraceful, shocking statements,” accusing the Witkoff of acting as an envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than of Trump. [...] Moscow has repeatedly signaled that its sovereignty over the territories is not negotiable, while Kiev has pledged to seize back control of all the territories it claims as its own. The Ukrainian leadership has seemingly softened its rhetoric of late, now insisting it will never recognize “occupation” of the territories and Russian sovereignty over them in any form.

■ Putin’s latest talks with Trump’s envoy: What we know so far (RT)

Kiev allegedly refers to Britain’s military chiefs as the “brains” of the “anti-Putin” coalition, according to the exposé | Britain’s military leadership has played a far more extensive and covert role in the Ukraine conflict than previously known, not only designing battle plans and supplying intelligence, but also authorizing secret troop deployments inside the country to provide weapons training and technical support, according to a report by The Times. ● While London’s political and military backing for Kiev has been public since the 2014 Western-backed coup, the extent of its involvement after the escalation in February 2022 “remained largely hidden… until now,” the British newspaper wrote on Friday, citing unnamed Ukrainian and British military officers. ● The Times claimed that British troops were sent into Ukraine in small numbers on several occasions throughout 2022 and 2023, operating discreetly to avoid provoking Russia. In particular, UK forces were deployed to fit Ukrainian aircraft with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles and train pilots and ground crews in their use.

US and Ukrainian officials met on the draft proposal in Washington on Friday, the source said | The draft agreement on Ukrainian minerals suggested by the United States contains a demand that the US government's International Development Finance Corporation take control of a natural gas pipeline from Russia's Gazprom across Ukraine to Europe, Reuters reported citing a source with knowledge of the matter. ● US and Ukrainian officials met on the draft proposal in Washington on Friday, the source said. Prospects for a breakthrough were scant given the meeting's "antagonistic" atmosphere, the agency wrote. "The negotiating environment is very antagonistic," the source said, pointing to the "maximalist" draft submitted by the US administration in March. A Treasury Department spokesperson confirmed the discussions, calling them "technical in nature."

■ Reuters: переговоры США и Украины по ископаемым прошли в атмосфере антагонизма (https://ren.tv/)

"China’s position on settlement in Ukraine is quite balanced, and we are grateful to our friends for that," Andrey Rudenko noted | Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko has slammed statements that Chinese citizens are fighting in Ukraine as absolutely false. [...] On the previous day the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Beijing had not sent its military for participating in the Ukrainian conflict, with the country’s authorities requesting its citizens to avoid involvement in combat activities. Earlier, information was spread in Ukraine that Chinese citizens allegedly participated in the fighting.

Martin Armstrong | It has begun. German hospitals are preparing for war. | Germany has embarked on its first permanent foreign deployment of its troops outside of Germany since the days of Hitler and World War II. Merz is a very dangerous warmonger, and Germany’s parliament has approved the dispatch of German troops to eastern Lithuania, along NATO’s eastern boundary. This is truly a historic event. I was in Tokyo when the government wanted to send troops to the Middle East, but the US had restricted its constitution to confine Japanese troops within 200 miles of their border. The politicians wanted to change the constitution, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese protested, fearing the military would rise again.

■ Only six Western states willing to deploy troops to Ukraine – AFP (Yahoo)

China retaliated Friday to higher U.S. tariffs, slapping 125% levies on U.S. goods, but signaled it would apply no further measures in the future.

💬 "If the U.S. continues to increase tariffs on Chinese exports, China will not respond," China's Ministry of Finance said in a statement announcing the new levies, in a sign that Chinese authorities see no real upside to any further tit-for-tat measures beyond these. "Given the current level of tariffs, U.S. goods exported to China are no longer market-viable," the statement added by way of explanation.

■ Xi warns US will isolate itself (RT)
✅ China Escalates With 125% Tariff On US Imports, Signals Will "Ignore" Future Retaliation (Tyler Durden)