In 1975, the nations of the world had gotten together to sign the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to ban manufacture, storage and use of biological warfare weapons. Yet, in 2019, the world saw the disastrous spread of the Covid-19 pandemic that infected 523 million people globally and killed some 6.3 million. It caused a hit of over two trillion dollars to the global economy and nearly caused a recession. Even as the world was emerging from the Covid pandemic, we now hear reports of a Monkey Pox virus rearing its head. The world is still to get to the bottom of the origin of Covid-19. Was it a natural epidemic, an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology or worse – a staged accident to gain deniability for the deliberately induced pandemic? China and the World Health Organisation (WHO) made a mockery of that investigation.

We now have received Russian reports of incriminating material recovered from some of the over 30 bio-warfare labs that the US Department of Defense had funded and run in Ukraine. This could have been dismissed as propaganda but for the fact that most of it is confirmed from open sources in the USA itself. So, where will it all end? Will the world die out from induced pandemics long before it will die of global warming or a nuclear winter?

War is an abomination but a war fought honorably – where soldier show great courage and self-sacrificing altruism in defence of their nation and its values – does have its redeeming features. But wars waged by toxins and poisons represent a horrible sickness of the human mind. In 2019, China was getting panicky about America’s mounting pressure over Taiwan, South China Sea, Hongkong and Xinjiang. There were indications that it apprehended that the USA was going to unleash the Bat Corona virus on it. So, perhaps, it decided to strike first and unleashed Covid-19 upon the world. The world economy was grievously hit and was showing tenuous signs of recovery when the Ukraine War started.

However, China was not the only country working on Bat Corona viruses and other such lethal pathogens. So was the United States. What is more, the USA had established a series of biological warfare laboratories in former Soviet states like Kazakhstan, Georgia and Ukraine. Ukraine had become a virtual bridge head for research in Bat Corona viruses, Avian Flu, and Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic fevers. These countries shared bat and bird populations with Russia and as such were natural foci for the spread of these viruses into Russia. Their use could be disguised as natural outbreaks of diseases. So, apart from spreading democracy to Russia and its neighbours, Ukraine and Georgia were turned into major bridgeheads for destabilization and the spread and projection of viruses and pathogens to kill the people of Russia in their millions (if need arose for such attacks). These labs were not for defensive research (as claimed) but offensive in orientation. Like Pakistan, Ukraine and Georgia were most enthusiastic about renting out their territory to the US and NATO for hostile actions designed to destabilise Russia. Inherent in all this was the diabolical design of first spreading disease and misery and then selling vaccines, ventilators, protective clothing, face masks and drugs to make huge profits. Such thinking represents a vile sickness of the human mind that is dangerous for the future survival of the human race.

The sad historical fact is that both World War I and II had originated in Europe. Europe now seems determined to ensure that not only World War III starts again in Europe but is fought by the vilest means, that may include nuclear, biological and chemical warfare weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They preach rationality and humanistic values to the rest of mankind. Their actions, unfortunately, are premised upon greed and zero sums games that usually end in horrendous conflicts and world wars. This urge for domination, control and economic exploitation is at the root of all wars and conflict. Dangerous pathogens and toxins are being made in laboratories in many countries and stored on a massive scale for actual use. This is unprecedented and dangerous and could end the human race itself. The world may not die with a nuclear bang but could well end in a sick whimper with another devastating pandemic.

There is an urgent need to strengthen and add teeth to the biological warfare convention and monitor all such facilities in all countries and impose the harshest sanctions for violation. A section of the elite in the major powers seem to imply that the globe is overpopulated and biological warfare would serve a Malthusian purpose by decimating the number of humans on this planet. This would ease pressure on scarce and dwindling resources. This is the type of ghoulish thinking that was behind the Jewish Holocaust. There is an urgent need to name and shame the people behind this sick thinking and ensure that the 1975 Toxin and Biological Weapons Convention is adhered to most strictly by all the nations of the world.

US Biological Warfare Efforts

The Covid pandemic broke out in the end of 2019 and caused severe panic and distress all over the globe. The large-scale panic induced by the pandemic forced analysts all over the globe to frantically research the latest advances in this fast emerging domain of weaponising viruses and pathogens as WMD. The analysts realized that despite the Biological Convention of 1975, almost all major powers (USA, China, and perhaps Russia and even Europe) were feverishly engaged in biological warfare research and development. This was mostly justified as defensive research to pre-empt nature or safeguard ones country from such attacks by hostile nations.

The United States was leading the pack. Not only was it conducting the research on its own soil but under Dr Fauci’s “Gain of Function” (GOF) research programme was outsourcing this research to China, Eastern Europe and other destinations – so that if there was a leak, local populations in other countries would suffer the consequences. Mainland USA would be safe from such accidents. Surprisingly, most of the information was available in open sources on the Internet itself. From these open sources it is possible to piece together a fairly accurate picture of the bio-warfare programmes of the USA. Those of China have already been studied in great detail.

US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (MIRD). The American Army MIRD is located at Fort Detrick in Maryland. It has been conducting research on dangerous pathogens like Bat Corona viruses, Ebola, MERS, etc. In July 2014, the American Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ordered a safety audit inspection of this biotech facility. It concluded that it lacked facilities to decontaminate waste water. As such, this could lead to leakage of dangerous pathogens. It ordered a temporary halt on all such research at Fort Detrick. Thus, in 2014, (during President Obama’s administration), the US Government paused all Gain of Function (GOF) research being conducted in the US. GOF research was defined as “research reasonably anticipated to confer attributes that enhance pathogenicity and transmissibility in mammals.” It was alleged by Senator Rand Paul that this temporary federal pause in GOF research funding was cleverly sought to be bypassed by Dr Fauci, the head of US National Institute of Health (NIH). His solution seemed simple – off shore such research, give it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology through an NGO (led by Peter Dszak of US Eco-health Alliance). He was given a grant of $3.7 million to offshore these research projects to China and other countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South East Asia. Of this, some $3 billion grant, some $600,000 was given to the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

There was another underlying/unstated intention. From countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, such pathogens could exploit local vectors like birds and bats and spread the contagion to Russia or China and other target countries. Clever play of words was used to obfuscate the GOF aspects of the research being outsourced. There were direct accusations by Republican Senator Rand Paul on the floor of the Senate to this effect. What precisely was GOF? Some defined it as introduction of a mutation that enhances the genes’ functional properties. It either increases virulence or transmissibility in humans. One biologist Charles Schmidt stated that GOF was all in the eye of the beholder. (Cited in BMB Today member magazine of the American Society for Biochemistry & Microbiology, 21 Nov 2021 Issue). Subsequently, after the Covid pandemic broke, Dr Fauci would play upon these nuances in the American Senate to strenuously deny that he had funded any GOF research in China. The Bat Corona virus program in China was funded through the Eco-Heath Alliance NGO of Peter Dszak. Dszak was later part of the WHO investigating team!

However, the fact is, full-fledged biological warfare labs were funded and built by the US Department of Defense itself (either through Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) or Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)). The funding by the US Department of Defense clearly underlined the hostile or offensive nature of this biological research. It was not so much for prevention of outbreak of diseases but for waging offensive biological warfare in hostile states.

Kazakhstan-based Research Institute for Bio-Safety Problems. The Khazakstan National Centre for Biotechnology received millions of dollars from the US Government. This location was considered ideal for Bat Corona virus research as it borders both China and Russia. In 2019, a study on Bat Corona virus lineages from Khazakstan was published by this institute. It conducted a deep study of bat fauna and noted great similarities in bats of China, France, Spain and South Africa. Bats from Khazakstan migrate to China and Ukraine. Reportedly, this institute had a store house of 278 pathogens and strains of some 48 infectious diseases.

R Lugar Centre Georgia (Tbilisi). This covert US bio-weapons laboratory was ideally located to target Russia and do research in animal and bird species native to that region. The Tbilisi bio-lab in Georgia was also engaged in Bat Corona virus research and research in animal and bird species native to that region. Vectors like migratory birds and bats were selected to spread viral infections into Russia and cause pandemics like Avian Flu and Bat Corona viruses.

Ukraine as a Bridge head for Biological Warfare?

The biological warfare infrastructure in Georgia and Kazakhstan, however, was modest compared to the large and elaborate infrastructure established in Ukraine by the US Department of Defense and agencies like DARPA and DRTA. Actually, the Ukraine programme predated the 2014 GOF research offshoring drive. In fact, in 2010, US Senator Dick Lugar had applauded the opening of the Interim Central Defense Laboratory in Odessa (Ukraine) on the Internet. He had announced that it would be instrumental in researching pathogens used by bio-terrorists. The Level 3 bio-safety lab, he said, would be used to study Anthrax, Futaremia and Q Fever as well as other dangerous pathogens. The US Embassy in Kiev had, on its website, details of US funding of biological research labs studying dangerous viruses and pathogens. These details were hastily taken off from the embassy website on 25 Feb 2022, a day after start of the Russian invasion.

Victoria Nuland, US Deputy Secretary of State, was forced to admit in the US Senate in Apr 2022 about the establishment of US-funded bio-labs in Ukraine. In fact, she even expressed apprehensions that those dangerous pathogens should not fall into the hands of the advancing Russians!

The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had expressed serious concern about US military and biological activities in Ukraine. These, he alleged, violated the Convention on Prohibition of Development, Production and Accumulation of stocks of Biological and Toxin weapons. In fact, he accused the US of having 336 bio-labs in same 30 countries. Of these, he alleged, some 26 bio-labs were located in Ukraine alone.

On 24 February, the Pentagon is said to have issued panic instructions to the Ukraine Ministry of Health to destroy the pathogens and viruses stored in those labs along with all documentation pertaining to these research activities.

The American National Academy of Sciences had, in 2011, published details of US Department of Defense-funded bio-lab in Odessa that was doing research in dangerous pathogens. The Americans were funding creation of deadly pathogens like African Swine Flu and respiratory viruses. The Fact Sheet of the US Embassy also cited these details in open sources on the Internet.

The Russians stated that their operations directed towards Kiev and Kharkiev were also tasked to capture these bio-labs. All the bio-war labs in Eastern Ukraine were also secured and, though most of the toxins and documentation was destroyed, the Russians claim interrogation of the lab employees and captured documents did reveal considerable details of the covert American biological warfare programme in Ukraine.

The Russians have carried out an analysis of these documents captured from the bio-labs and gave out the details in a press conference held during the war by the Russian defence ministry. They highlighted the following:-

• Since 2014, there was a network of more than 30 labs for bio-warfare established in the territory of Ukraine, with financial and organizational support from the US Department of Defense.
• These were engaged in research programs to study especially dangerous pathogens and viruses.
• Customers for these programmes were the US DTRA.
• An agreement for joint bio-warfare activities was concluded between US Defense Department and Ukrainian Ministry of Health. The real recipients of funds were the labs run by Ukraine MoD located in Leviv, Odessa, Kiev and Kharkiev. Some $32 million of funding was provided for these labs.
• Biolabs were aided by US DTRA and a civilian contractor firm – Black Viatech.
• The pathogens being studied were Avian Flu, Bat Corona virus, Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, Leptosprosis and Hanta viruses. All these have natural foci in Ukraine and Russia and, hence, their use could be disguised as natural out breaks of disease.

The three key projects being run were:-

• P-781 Project on Bat Corona Viruses. This was to study ways of transmitting diseases to humans through bats. This was being done primarily in the bio-labs in Kharkiev and the R Lugar laboratory in Tbilisi in Georgia. Main contractor, however, was Ukraine and a total sum of $1.6 mn was spent on this Bat Corona virus project.
• UP-4 Project Avian Flu. This was aimed at detection of diseases in birds that pose greatest danger to humans and have maximum potential for destabilisation of epidemiological situation in a region for limited periods of time. They studied routes of bird migrations and determined which of them passed through Russian territory. They determined places of greatest congestion of birds where it would be possible to infect whole flocks with dangerous pathogens. Russians claimed that were was an outbreak of Avian Flu in 2021 and 6 million birds of poultry stock had to be destroyed.
• U-P-8 Project. This aimed to study pathogens of Congo–Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever as also Leptospirosis and Hanta viruses.
• German Research. Russians claimed that Germany also conducted its own military and biological programme in Ukraine, which also focused on the Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever in conditions of Europe. For this project the Bernhard Nocht Institute of Tropical Medicine (of Hamburg, Germany) cooperated with Public Health Centre of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. German experts, it claimed, visited Ukranian hospitals in Kiev, Kharkiev, Odessa and Leviv to study features of causes of disease in local populations. The project was said to be funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bundeshwehr. This research seems more defensive in orientation.
• There was work on Pathogenic Bacteria (Plague Brucellois and Leptosprosis – especially strains resistant to drugs). The Odessa bio-lab was focusing on Plague, Anthrax, Cholera and drug resistant strains of Tuberculosis as also Dirofilariasis – a disease transmitted by mosquitos. This last one had actually spread in Kherson (which supplies water to Crimea).
• Finally, the Americans seemed to be collecting blood serum and DNA samples of the ethnic Slav populations in Ukraine to facilitate research for targeting particular ethnotypes. These studies looked into influence of pathogens on humans taking into account racial and ethnic factors. The aim was to develop biological weapons for specific action or “Ethnic weapons” to target particular social groups and ethnicities – in this case Russian Slav ethnicity. (Details taken from by the Russian Ministry of Defense briefing on the subject during the conflict).

These are indeed serious allegations and deserve to be investigated impartially by an empowered global body like the WHO or a special UN-mandated body set up to enforce the Biological Warfare Convention of 1975. There is a dire need to strengthen the Biological Warfare Convention of 1975 in terms of strict monitoring of all bio-medical research facilities dealing with dangerous viruses and pathogens in all countries of the world. There must be a new treaty on monitoring all such facilities and for stringent global action on any country that violates this Convention. Such research facilities in all countries must be monitored and severe sanctions imposed – at par with the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty. The world cannot take this threat lightly and must get together at once to enforce the ban on biological weapons. It would be madness to let such weaponised pathogens proliferate and pose a serious danger to mankind – defensive or offensive. All nations have agreed not to produce, manufacture, store and use biological warfare weapons. This treaty must be given strong teeth and implemented with the greatest strictness. The sham of an investigation carried out by WHO in Wuhan must not be repeated. Otherwise, after the Bat Corona virus, the world may have to face many more juiced up viruses that have been spliced in the lab. The global economy has taken a very severe knock. We are heading towards planetary doom and suicide if some disgusting cowards want to fight wars by spreading highly infectious diseases. The way a nation fights shows us their essential character. We cannot afford a new and sick paradigm where cowardly nations wage war by spreading viruses and pathogens in a way that is deniable.

Our planet’s future is at stake today and we must act.

The post The Global Menace of Biological Warfare appeared first on IMR.

As a military historian I would like to commence with a grim reminder. The Second World War began with a staged incident on the Polish frontier in 1939. The Nazis staged an attack on their own post at Dresden and used it as a pretext to attack Poland. Very similarly, the Japanese Army had staged an incident at Mukden on the Manchurian front and used it as the pretext for invading China. So, will the Third World War possibly begin with a staged accident at a virology laboratory? The world has sufficient reason for immense outrage. 171 million people have been infected globally and almost 3.7 million have been killed so far. An end of this mayhem is not in sight. The global economy has been hit to the tune of well over $2 trillion. The world has been hit much harder than it was in the Great Depression of the 1930s that preceded World War II. Economic devastation and ruin pave the way for world wars and large scale conflicts. Such devastation makes people desperate enough to choose war as an option.

Mao’s China had a combat-hardened army — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that had fought non- stop for four decades. The present PLA is a far cry. It has not fought a war in 42 years. It had come out second best in its last war with Vietnam. Today, it is a conscript army of Princelings (single child families) that lacks the stomach for a head-on fight. Is that a consideration that could have impelled China to wage biological war instead? Or, was it a defensive mindset – a conviction that China had been the victim of biological attacks and, hence, was justified in retaliating in kind. The Chinese way of war has always laid emphasis on subduing the enemy without fighting. But, biological warfare is an insane option for not fighting the honourable way. Even a mass murderer like Hitler had refrained from using his biological weapons stockpile in the Second World War.

Chinese Military Interest in Bio Warfare

Back in 1999, I was serving in the Military Operations (MO) Directorate with Nuclear Chemical and Biological Warfare (NBC) as part of my charter. Our military attaché in USA sent us a book on Unrestricted Warfare by two Chinese Senior Colonels – Quiao Liang and Wang Xiangsi ( they later rose to be generals). It was on how China could take on and defeat a super power like the USA by waging a no-holds-barred conflict that involved a multitude of means, including military and non-military. Non-military means included terrorism, biological warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare, economic warfare, currency manipulation and a host of other methods. The aim was to bring the enemy to his knees, without a shot being fired, by non-contact warfare. This was followed up by a book “War for Power” by Guo-Jeiwi, a military researcher, in 2010. This openly talked of a new concept of war with biological characteristics. Further books followed, including one by Lt Gen Zhang Sibu, who openly talked of weaponising the virus.

Official Military Doctrine. All these books by individual military officers could be taken as mere kite flying or veiled threats. However, in 2017, China updated its official military doctrine enshrined in the Science of Military Strategy. This updated edition added a new chapter on biological warfare titled ‘Biology as a Domain for Military Strategy.” China is a signatory to the biological warfare convention banning such weapons. How then could China include bio-warfare in its official doctrine? The world should have protested loudly but it did not.

Smoking Gun. The Smoking gun document, however, had been written even earlier. In 2015, Xu Dezhong, a senior Chinese Air Force virologist, had led a team of 18 scientists and authored an exhaustive study on biological warfare. Their findings were presented to the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the highest leadership in China over 24 briefing sessions – in itself a clear indication of the overwhelming significance allocated to this subject. This document actually explains what precisely has happened since then. Some of the crucial findings/ recommendations of this study merit highlighting in detail:-

• This report clearly stated that the SARS virus was a genetically engineered virus specifically designed to target China. This was startling and indicated a siege mentality — a deep seated Chinese perception that it was the victim of biological war. Ergo sum, China was fully justified in retaliating in kind. Such a Chinese mindset in itself is dangerous and has possibly precipitated the deliberate Wuhan virus release.
• This study spoke of how the new found technique of freeze drying micro-organisms has enabled storage of bio-war agents. These can subsequently be aerosolized whenever a biological warfare attack has to be mounted. Such an attack is so easy to mount and cannot really be traced back to source. There is complete deniability in such attacks.
• The study spoke of how the entire health care system in a society can be collapsed and crippled with such a biological attack. Not only will this cause mass casualties and widespread morbidity but induce tremendous psychological stress in victim countries. It can have long term disruptive impact and bring about economic collapse. Hence, such bio agents are ideal to bring a country to its knees without a shot being fired. This actualizes Sun Tzu’s axiom of subduing the enemy without fighting. At the very least it would set up the target country for a follow up military strike to exploit the severe disarray and disruption.

Chinese Biological War Preprations

The unfortunate fact is China did not stop at theorizing and writing about bio-warfare. It took active and concrete steps to create this capability in a useable form. Consider the following:-

• There are two virology labs in Wuhan itself. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIF) lab was set up with French assistance as a level-4 facility. It is headed by two PLA general rank officers — Maj Gen Shi Zhengli (famed as China’s bat woman and world’s leading expert on bat corona viruses) and Maj Gen Cao Wei (who had served in Africa and dealt with MERS and Ebola epidemics). The very fact that China’s virology labs are headed by military officers indicates the military dimension of their programmes. A Chinese virologist claims that most of this research was carried out at the second lab which is level-2 or 3 facility with high chances of leakage.

• The trail goes back to 2012 when six Chinese miners went to clean a disused copper mine at Moijang in Yunan province and fell sick with pneumonia with lung patches similar to Covid. Gen Sheng Li rushed teams there and collected samples from 276 bats in 2013. They published findings in2016 and identified the bat corona virus strain as RaBTCov/ 4991. (This was later found to be the same as the infamous strain RaTG 13 which has 96.2% match with the genome sequence of Covid-19 virus).
• In 2015, Gen Shi Zhengli had written four papers on how the SARS hook virus could be spliced on to this bat corona backbone to make it a highly lethal and communicable virus as part of gain-of-function research.
• She was mentored by Prof Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina in USA. Not only did he help her with this gain-of-function research, he also taught her to do it via serial passage through cell cultures to mask it and make it look like a natural virus. Nicholas Wade has disclosed this. By November 2015, this souped up virus was ready in the WIF. This research continued through 2016-17. In 2018, an American team that had visited Wuhan, warned of lax protocols there and how these very dangerous pathogens stored there could leak out. Contact between US and Chinese scientists seemed to have declined steeply thereafter and Dr Zhengli’s four papers were suddenly taken off the net. The whole programme was suddenly made quite opaque – after Sep 2019 it went under complete warps.
• A recent study by a UK and Norway-based duo of micro biologists named Dr Anges Dalgaleh and Berger Soransen has now quite conclusively proved that that the Wuhan coronavirus is not a natural virus but is definitely lab engineered. They noted that the SARS hook molecule had been spliced on to the backbone of the bat carona virus (RaTG 13). This hook molecule had four positively charged amino acids – which made them easily attach to negatively charged human cells and become far more infectious. Here is the catch. Positively charged ions repel each other. Hence, in natural organisms finding two such positively charged amino acids in a row is difficult. Three is a rarity. Four in a row gives the show away – it is definitely a lab engineered virus.

Holes in the Zoonotic Theory

The Zoonotic theory that this pandemic emerged from the Wuhan wet market is full of holes. To start with no bats are sold in the Wuhan wet markets. The nearest they are found is in the caves of Nanjing and Yunan some 550 kms away. As stated in 2012, six miners trying to clear a Yunan disued copper mine of bat feces fell sick with a penumonia with lung patches remarkably similar to Covid. Next year, Gen Shengli sent a team to collect bat corona samples from there to soup it up. In November 2019, three operatives of WIV died in autumn 2019 of a disease with remarkably similar symptoms to Covid. All such viruses from animal vectors usually come thru an intermediary host. Thus, SARS came via bats to civet (cats) to humans. This link was discovered in a matter of just four months. MERS came to man from bats via camels to humans. This link was discovered in just eight months. It has been over 18 months since the Covid pandemic hit China, until now there is no trace of the intermediary host. The reason is simple. There is none because it is not a natural virus. It was most deliberately engineered in a lab.

Circumstantial Evidence

 We have sufficient circumstantial evidence that, by 2015, the top Chinese leadership was convinced that it was the victim of biological warfare via the SARS genetically engineered virus. Right or wrong is immaterial, what matters is the strong perception and siege mentality which could end up as motivation for justifying striking back in kind. We find that in 2015 itself energetic steps were being taken in WIV to weaponise the bat corona virus isolated from the defunct copper mine. This gain-of-function virus was ready by November 2015 and China was ready to strike back! Dr Shi Zhengli has since been honoured by the Chinese CCP. The updated edition of the official PLA doctrine in 2017 had a whole new chapter on biological warfare. Bio war was now the official doctrine of the PLA.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump had become the president of USA and with great clarity he identified China as the main adversary and challenger. He took very proactive steps to contain the rise of a highly aggressive China. He put tremendous pressure by arming Taiwan, stoking/highlighting unrest in Hongkong, Xinjiang and Tibet and then via an all out trade war. The US Navy pushed back strongly in Taiwan Straits and South and East China Seas.

Thus, by 2019, China was put under tremendous pressure. In September 2019, the Military Games took place in Wuhan and later, Zhao lijian, official spokesperson of Chinese foreign ministry, accused the US Special Forces of spreading the corona virus in Wuhan under cover of the games. The veracity of the charge is another matter – I am highlighting the Chinese perceptions that could have become motivations for action. There are some media reports that, in 2019, China made vaccination compulsory for all citizens. US intelligence reports indicate that, in November 2019, three Chinese workers in the WIV had fallen sick with symptoms very similar to the Covid outbreak. The first Covid case, however, was acknowledged only on 8 Dec 2019. Thereafter, starts a deliberate trail of obfuscation and deliberate suppression of information. Chinese whistle blower doctors and researchers were killed or jailed. Even in late Dec 2019, WHO was being told that this disease was not communicable from human to human. Dr Guissepe, a top Italian micro-biologist tells us that the PLA was given charge of containing the virus in Wuhan. For a nation supposedly taken by surprise, they did an amazingly efficient job. Beijing, a 1000 kms away and Shanghai, just 800 kms away, were unscathed. However, 25 flights a day from Wuhan to New York and similar number to Europe and other destinations were allowed to continue unchecked.

 On 20 Jan 2020 , the WIV filed a use patent for Remdesivir — the much touted cure for corona. To file a use patent you have to test at least for two/three months. Thus, the Chinese knew all about Covid from at least November 2019 onwards, if not earlier. Yet, deliberate suppression of information continued. In fact, in February 2020, over two months after acknowledgement of Covid, the Chinese foreign minister was calling upon all neighbouring countries to keep their borders open (ostensibly for prestige reasons). Whether the release was accidental or deliberate, China was certainly doing everything possible to spread the Corona virus and weaponise its release.

Accident or Staged Accident?

We now come across a strange coincidence. By 8 Dec 2019, the first Covid patient had been acknowledged in Wuhan. On 28 Dec 19 the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning had sailed out into the Taiwan Straits and East and South China Seas. The Chinese Navy and Air Force had started a series of very provocative exercises against Taiwan, Japan and South China Sea countries. Two US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers had to be withdrawn from the Pacific as their crews were infected with Covid. China hurriedly readied and deployed its second aircraft carrier and became dangerously provocative, especially with its Air Force incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ). In end Mar- Apr 2020, China staged forward two mechanized divisions from Xinjiang and started incursions against India in Ladakh. Does a country surprised suddenly by a pandemic start war-like moves against all its neighbours concurrently? Or does it hunker down to protect its population and deal with the pandemic? There is something seriously sinister in this juxtaposition of the pandemic and very aggressive military moves on all fronts. It almost smacks of an attempt to exploit a biological strike as a Pearl Harbour. As stated, in World War II, Japan and Germany had started invasions of China and Poland with staged incidents. That leads to the uncomfortable question – was the Wuhan accidental release, a staged accident? The world is now veering around to the view that what happened in Wuhan was an accidental release. I have pointed out to a whole lot of circumstantial evidence that seems to suggest that given China’s fear psychosis, it could well have been a “staged accident.” Such actions stem from perceptions and China’s clear perception since 2015 has been that it has already been attacked by biological weapons — retaliation is, therefore, justified in the Chinese mind-set.

Lies in Lancet

When the Covid pandemic erupted, 27 top virologists got together and wrote an article in the prestigious Lancet journal (19 Feb 2020), absolving China of all blame and asserting that it was a natural zoonotic epidemic that had emerged from the wet markets of Wuhan. In the highly polarized presidential campaign in America, this scientific judgement was used to dismiss all strident claims of President Trump and his cabinet members, accusing China of generating this virus in a lab from where it appeared to have leaked out. These were then cynically branded as mere conspiracy theories. With the heat and dust of the presidential campaign behind us, we have had time for more sober reflection and the picture that is emerging is not pretty. Number of disclosures have come under the Freedom of Information Act in the USA and the scientific community has taken a second hard look at the data. It now turns out that one of the lead authors of this defence of China in Lancet, was Peter Daszak, head of the NGO – Eco Health Alliance. He had a serious conflict of interest, which should have disqualified him from commenting on issues pertaining to the WIV. it turns out that during President Obama’s tenure, gain-of-function research was being undertaken in some virology labs in the US. This had been initiated by DARPA as part of its pre-empt programme (to anticipate nature and hostile counties) by producing souped up viruses (before nature could) and developing medicines and vaccines to counter them. Primary establishment was the US Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There were serious concerns of leakage and all such research was halted for three years (2014- 17). It was then that Dr Fauci of the NIH decided to offload all such research to foreign countries through NGOs. As part of this, $3.4 million was given to Peter Dasazk’s Eco Health Organisation. He, along with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology had jointly funded the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan institute. Subsequently, he was part of the WHO Team sent for investigations to Wuhan. He did not recuse himself and gave a second clean chit to WIV in the 30 Mar 2021 WHO report.

The lid was blown off this cover up really by Nicholas Wade’s meticulously researched article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, one of the most prestigious scientific journals. He pointed out how Maj Gen Shi Zhengli, who was heading the WIV had cooperated with Prof Ralph Baric of the North Carolina University for gain-of-function research on bat corona viruses. In fact, he had tutored her on the technique of serial passage through cell cultures that make the modified virus look natural. With Prof Baric’s help, she had been able to splice a SARS hook molecule on to the backbone of a bat carona virus so that it would now attach on to the cells of human airways in November 2015 itself.

 Where do we go from here?

The key question now is what does the world do with China? The losses suffered are too horrendous to be shrugged off as business as usual. Human lives matter a great deal and 3.7 million dead amounts to genocide.

• There is, unfortunately, a sadly capitulationist mindset, that the world can do nothing to China, so let sleeping dogs lie. I would contest that strongly. Philippines had taken China to the international Court of Justice (ICJ) and won its case on the South China Sea dispute. China ignored the ICJ verdict with contempt but has had to pay a heavy price with the US Navy and other Quad nations’ carrier battle groups steaming into South China Sea to strongly contest the restrictions on freedom of navigation in a big way.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the world’s watchdog on nuclear proliferation. It has strong teeth to carry out intrusive inspections of nuclear reactors even in rouge nations. We need to rework the Biological Warfare Convention and create international watch dog bodies to carry out intrusive inspections of virology labs in all countries.

The world cannot afford to let China get away scot free on Covid. 171 million people have been infected and 3.7 million are dead. Over 300,000 citizens have died in India itself. China and other nations (including Pakistan) will have to be deterred if such mayhem has to be stopped. The world needs to get together and name and shame China as the first step. Concerted multi-domain pressure is called for to deter China in a credible fashion. We need to put in place major economic costs and sanctions. The global supply chains will have to be re-worked. The aim would be to deter China or any other nation from routinely employing biological warfare as a first resort option for waging mass casualty disruptive strikes. The world simply cannot accept this scenario.

The post Wuhan: Accidental Release or Staged Accident? appeared first on IMR.

India and China have had a violent confrontation after 1967 in Galwan Valley in June 2020. This has led to both the Indian Airforce (IAF) and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) to marshal their fleets. It is clearly important to understand  the PLAAF’s capabilities and limitations and estimate their threats to the IAF in the Ladakh and Tibet theatre of operations.

Peoples Liberation Army Air Force

The PLAAF is an aerial service branch of the Army. The PLAAF was officially established on 11 November 1949, it is composed of five branches – aviation, anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, radar and Airborne Corps. 

The rusted, derailed, oversized PLAAF in 1960/1970 started its modernization journey under Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Four Modernizations’, in consequence to the US Air Force’s assault on Iraq in 1991 brought out the importance of having an advanced air force for modern-day wars. Currently, the PLAAF is divided into five major theatre commands, viz,

•             Eastern Theater Command – Nanjing

•             Southern Theater Command – Guangzhou

•             Western Theater Command –  Chengdu

•             Northern Theater Command – Shenyang

•             Central Theater Command – Beijing 

The PLAAF has largely banked on the Russian aerospace technologies to modernize its fleet. It is believed that J-11 programme has been ‘reverse engineered” from the Soviet Su-27 aircraft. The Israelis have passed on the technology of the ‘Lavi’ programme to China for the J10. Apart from such external support, China’s industrial policy has also been a catalyst in producing the PLAAF’s versatile fleet.

ALSO READ India closely monitoring seven Chinese military airbases

Dissecting the  Western Command 

The Western Theatre Command is spread over Sichuan, Tibet, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Chongqing. The location of the command makes it the first strike force of the PLAAF. China has been predominantly focused on strengthening its eastern and central commands. It is only in the past few years that there has been a thrust to develop the Western Theatre Command.

Airfields. The strategic  airfields in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) are Hotan,  Lhasa/Gonggar, Ngari-Gunsa and Xigaze. These are the nearest facilities to Indian targets in Kashmir, northern India, and northeast India. Ngari-Gunsa and Xigaze reportedly have no hardened shelters or blast pens for their aircraft.

Lhasa/Gonggar is reported to have recently developed hardened shelters able to protect up to 36 aircraft, while Hotan reportedly hosts “two aircraft shelters” of unknown capacity. The distances of various PLAAF airfields from Indian bases are as follows.

Airfield to Airfield            Distance
Srinagar to Kashgar         625 Km
Leh to Kashgar                615km
Leh to Khotan        384 Km
Leh to Shiquanhe            324 km
Ambala to Shiquanhe     363 Km
Hashimara to Gonggar 324 hm
Tezpur id Nynqchi            324 Km
Chabua to Nyngchi          217 Km
Chabua to Golmud          991 Km
Chabua to Bangda          393 Km

Source: Google Earth

High Altitude Operations. In the design of aircraft “Hot & High” has always been the worst case scenario considered by aerospace engineers.  The high altitude operations are a function of the engine thrust. The average air density at 4500m is 0.19kg/m3 as compared to 1.22 kg/m3 at sea level. The engine thrust produced at an altitude is directly proportional to the density. The lower air density also effects the air-fuel mixture ratio which means more fuel needed to make the rich ratio to generate thrust.

ALSO READ China downgrades its Chengdu J-20 ‘stealth’ fighter to 4th Generation

A review of the PLAAF fleet shows that most of the aircrafts use the derivate of AL31 engine, since the alternate  indigenously developed powerplant is not fully operational. Also, the Chinese media has also reported several air accidents in TAR region.

The longer runways (see Table top right) also indicate that the altitude does effect the Max Take-off Weight (MTOW), range and the climb rate. Altitude has large effect on the manoeuvrability and range due to reduced lift and powerplant complications. To summarise, the TAR terrain partially curtails the PLAAF from spreading its wings.

Western Theatre Command Assessment

The Western Theatre Command (WTC) is dominated by the indigenously developed Su 27, which is also positioned at few other locations. The Table above gives details of the deployment of this aircraft in the WTC. To counter 157 fighters of the PLAAF in WTC, the IAF has reportedly 270+ fighters deployed to deliver a massive power blow when called for. Also, most of the Indian fighters have been periodically upgraded  with advanced avionics and electronic warfare suits.

The J10 and J11, like any other Chinese developed aircrafts, are reported to be haunted by propulsion problems. The jets trail far behind in comparison to the MiG-29, Mirage 2000 and Jaguars operated by the IAF. The PLAAF advanced multirole fighter Su30MKK falls short as thrust-vectoring, advanced radar and avionics are absent.

Chengdu J20 is  claimed to be the 5th-generation advanced aircraft of the PLAAF. The fighter is propelled with 2×WS-10B or AL-31FM2 , which makes it slightly underpowered and affects the supercruise performance. A closer inspection of the airframe and inlet also indicates the same. The wide fuselage width is to accommodate the large fuel to meet the operational range of 6000km.

The assessment of the aircraft design features and weapons payload indicates that the aircraft has been deployed for early strike. Its current deployment in the Eastern Theatre Command (ETC) is to check the USAF’s operations by F22s and F35s. USAF  would largely rely on the mid-air refuelling and AWA&CS to operate its stealth fighters on the Chinese front. J20 is intended to fly undetected and launch the first strike against strategic air-targets. The use of J20 for offensive against IAF will be an interesting air operation.

The IAF Su30 MKI radar is reported to have picked up the J20 during its sorties  in TAR. This clearly questions the PLAAF’s claim of J20 being a stealthy aircraft. A closer look of the airframe profile indicates higher radar cross section (RCS) in the side and rear sections of the aircraft. The traditional power-plant of the aircraft also may not meet the required thermal signatures.

Transport Aircrafts

This arm of the PLAAF has the highest asymmetry as compared to the IAF. The large airlift is only dependent on IL76, Il78 and Y7. The induction of Xian Y20 has been an attempt to match the Indian strategic lift capability. The IAF’s demonstration of operating the C130J Hercules and C17 Globemaster at forward bases is an open challenge to the PLAAF. Recently inducted Chinook helicopters enable quick movement of troops and weapon systems.

Bombers

The PLAAF primary bomber is the H6 which is a license-produced copy of the Tu16 aircraft. The improved H6 has variants for nuclear, conventional bombing, reconnaissance and anti-ship missions. The prominent H6K variant has a combat radius of the 3500km. This range enables the aircraft to take off from eastern theatre and launch K/AKD-20/ CJ-20 or DH20 cruise missiles. These long distance cruise missiles (>2,000 km) can be launched well within the Chinese territory to eliminate strategic ground targets. However, with the Soviet Era design any upgrade would been only a temporary solution. This would eventually be phased out  on induction of Next generation bombers.

Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles

The highly industrious Chinese policy has boosted the development of large variety of unmanned platforms. The WTC predominantly operates the undermentioned drones.

•             WJ-1: The first land attack version of Chengdu Pterodactyl I (Wing Loong), which is a weapon platform without the reconnaissance/targeting pod under the chin. 

•             GJ-1: Another land attack version of Pterodactyl I that combines the capabilities of both Pterodactyl I and WJ-1 so that it can identify and engage targets on its own. GJ-1 can be distinguished from both Pterodactyl I and WJ-1 in that GJ-1 has both the reconnaissance/targeting pod under the chin as well as hardpoints to carry weapons. 

The PLAAF’s UAVs in WTC mostly carry precision guided munitions (Smart Bombs). The delivery of these bombs would need to fly them in proximity to the targets, thus, making them prone to Indian surface-to-air missiles (SAM). The mountainous terrain also poses great challenges like all-weather capability, secured data links and control from command centres.

Satellites, AWACS, Electronic Warfare and Information Warfare

Satellites. China had over 130 military satellites in 2015 and had doubled its launch rate during the period 2009-2014 as compared to the period 2003-2008. This large constellation has an edge to monitor enemy deployments and troops movements. It empowers the  deployment of satellite guided missiles and UAVs.

AWACS. It is estimated that China could possibly have over 20 AWACS and AEW&C aircraft in service to boost PLAAF operations. These include the Kong Jing-2000 (KJ-2000), four KJ-200 and two KJ-500 in the PLAAF fleet.

Electronic Warfare. Electromagnetic spectrum management is “planning, coordinating, and managing joint use of the spectrum through operational, engineering, and administrative procedures to enable EMS-dependent capabilities and systems to perform their functions in the intended environment without causing or suffering unacceptable interference.

PLA has a dedicated wing namely People Republic Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). This wing, apart from ESM also carries out roles of cyber, space and electronic attacks.

Mid-Air Refuelling

To overcome the effects of high altitudes and the restrictions that are posed on MTOW from PLAAF bases in TAR, the use of refuelling tankers is required for offensive missions. However, PLAAF operates only 17 refuelling aircraft (IL78 and Xian H6) which may not give them much strategic advantage against India.

ALSO READ Chinese Force Levels in Aksai Chin – Indian Military Review

Air Defence

PLAAF integrated Air Defence has been regarded as one of the best by several Western defence analysts. It comprises the newly acquired Russian S400 (250-300km), the older S300 and its improved and reverse-engineered version named the HQ9. IAF would be particularly concerned about them and the shorter-range Hq12 air defence systems. IAF’s offensive operations would be highly contested due to China’s robust air defence cover. China, not being a part of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) cannot expand the range of S400 to 300km. The Indian version of S400 (in procurement phase) has full strike capability of 400+ Km also reported to house several features of S500. The recently inducted IAI’s Harop Loitering munition of the IAF would give the air defence a tough battle in Ladakh.

Training

The PLAAF predominantly exercises its air force within the country or along with F16 fighters in Pakistan. Recent PLAAF exercises with unscripted scenarios have found that pilots are excessively reliant upon ground control for tactical direction. In unanticipated combat scenarios, this dependence on explicit control tower guidance becomes extreme, while “ground commands” are simultaneously often unable to keep up with the complex and changeable air situation.

War Scenarios and Conclusion

•             The geography of TAR is the biggest operational drawback for PLAAF aircrafts.

•             The lack of proven Chinese power plants limits/trims the capability of its fighters to a large extent.

•             The initial damages to the front line Chinese airbases will handicap the Chinese PLAAF offensive.

•             The large rail and roads to TAR facilities eases reinforcements to the forward bases.

•             IAF performs regular exercises with USAF, RAF, French and Russian Air Forces, which has helped gain proficiency and understand its platform limitations.

•             The wars of 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999 along with the recent surgical airstrikes have forged the IAF as compared to inexperienced PLAAF.

•             The distribution of airbases in TAR would increase the dependency of  the air defence units to protect the runways and airstrips.

•             Accuracy of ballistic missiles of the PLA will play a crucial role in PLAAF operations.

•             The lack of blast pens in TAR is a major shortage as it would hamper the moving of detachments to forward bases.

•             PLASSF can choke the IAF operations along the LAC.

•             Unlike Indian forward airbases there are no supporting airstrips in proximity to the LAC in TAR.

•             The use of Pakistani airbases to launch an offensive against India cannot be ruled out. A two front war will stretch IAF’s resources due to shrinking squadrons.

•             The networked PLAAF air defence like S400, S300, H9 and H12 poses a serious challenge to the IAF.

The post INDIA-CHINA: The IAF and PLAAF in Ladakh and Tibet appeared first on IMR.

One of the most talked-about pre-coronavirus trends was the controversial collaboration between the Big Tech, Biotech and Big Pharma players and some major sections of the Western press were involved in the discussions around these emerging trends. From an outer view, the post-coronavirus lockdown world seems like a playground of well-scripted efforts, where fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) strategy are nourishing the fortunes of these three booming industries. If we consider that this current trend is going to continue for a much longer period then we should prepare not just an exit strategy but a future roadmap too.

Big Tech – Biotech – Big Pharma Loop

It is interesting to see how the biotech investments of Big Tech companies, which initiated with the R&D goals, have eventually ended up in the controversial partnerships with some Big Pharmaceutical players. The pattern and ease with which these tech giants have shifted their domains to entirely different areas (in a similar timeframe) raise some serious questions.

Google

In 2007, Google backed a biotech and personal genomics company 23andMe (founded by Anne Wojcicki, who married Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin in the same year). Since its launch, the underlying medical purpose of 23andMe’s Personal Genome Service has been highly controversial and several times this entity fell under the scrutiny of the US and UK government agencies. On 25 July 2018, to leverage the DNA test results from 5 million customers, 23andMe and drug giant Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) entered into a partnership, too.

On 18 September 2013, Google announced its new initiative called Calico (California Life Company), and Arthur D. Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple, took up the charge as the CEO of this healthcare venture. Calico made some interesting R&D partnerships with AbbVie (a global biopharmaceutical company), Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, QB3 (California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences), Buck Institute, Ancestry DNA, Jackson Laboratory, and C4 Therapeutics. And, in November 2018, it entered into a collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT). The stated mission of Calico was to explore advanced technologies and their possible role in controlling the human lifespan and to “to devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives” but it is surprising that even after extensive research, their expected interventions and findings are still in shadow, even for the scientist fraternity.

Another Google/Alphabet subsidiary, which often made headlines is Verily Life Sciences or Verily, an R&D organization devoted to the study of life sciences. Last year, Verily formed strategic alliances with Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer and Sanofi kind of leading biopharma organizations, to develop digital clinical research programmes using Project Baseline’s (an initiative of Verily, started in 2017) evidence generation platform and tools. Its official objective “Making information work better so that healthcare works better” may sound philanthropic to some but the company is purely commercial. In 2016, Verily formed a joint venture called Galvani Bioelectronics with British pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK). In 2015, Verily and Johnson & Johnson’s medical device company Ethicon, launched a startup called Verb Surgical, a robotic surgery platform. The company has delivered some health-tracking wearables including smart spoon, smart lenses and smart shoe kind of projects.

It is also interesting to note that biopharma and life sciences investments make up more than a third of Google Ventures’ portfolio. Google Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Alphabet (an American conglomerate and restructured parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries) invested in some thriving biopharma/biotech companies including Editas Medicine (a leading genome editing company), Foundation Medicine (a molecular insight company), PACT Pharma, Magenta Therapeutics, Flatiron Health (a cancer research company, which was acquired by Roche, a Swiss pharma), One Medical, Arcus Biosciences, 23andMe, Grail, and Denali Therapeutics.

Microsoft

Last year, Microsoft and pharmaceutical company Novartis formed a strategic alliance “to transform medicine with Artificial Intelligence,” which is seen as one of the most expensive tie-ups between Big Pharma and Big Tech. Since 2010, tech giant Microsoft’s biological computation arm has been working on a wide range of projects including “designing molecular circuits made of DNA, and programming synthetic biological devices to perform complex functions over time and space.” The company has quietly built up a stronghold in the medical research and biological computation domains and their researchers are exploring moonshot possibilities in cell programming (to fight serious diseases) kind of emerging sectors and developing computer modeling tools to assist Big Pharma companies in drug discovery and development.

In 2000, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft started what he called his “second career” in philanthropy with the foundation of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whose primary goal was working globally to enhancing healthcare efforts and reducing extreme poverty. In the same year, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested in the GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) – a public-private global health partnership, which is also the third-largest financial contributor (8.39 per cent) to World Health Organization (WHO), next after USA (14.67 per cent) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (9.76 per cent) itself.

These days GAVI is in news for COVID-19 vaccine funding and distribution to poor countries, too, but it is important here to recall that in the past (2011-12) this alliance received some serious criticism for higher pricing of vaccines and for providing Advanced Market Commitments to companies like GSK and Pfizer and was also blamed for encouraging a duopoly situation in the sector.

Amazon

Big Tech and Marketplace player Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos have a growing inclination towards the biotech sector, too. In 2016, Jeff invested over $100 million in Unity Biotechnology, an anti-aging startup. Jeff Bezos invested in other healthcare startups, viz, ZocDoc, Mindstrong Health and cancer research startups Grail and Juno Therapeutics. These were some of Amazon’s most talked-about biotech investments but there are some lesser known initiatives too, ie, Project Gesundheit, which is a part of Amazon’s Grand Challenge R&D initiative. In 2017, CNBC channel reported that the marketplace giant Amazon has a dedicated team (led by Babak Parviz, ex-director and distinguished engineer at Google X), which quietly works on the healthcare projects. According to recent media reports, this year this group (which is sometimes called 1492) is working on a cure for the common cold and its revelation made headlines amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Facebook

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan’s biotech initiative – Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, frequently makes headlines. One of its ambitious initiatives is the Cell Atlas project, which aims to map every type of cell in the human body. The CZ Biohub is also working on infectious diseases and rapidly developing capabilities in diagnostic tests, drug and vaccine development, using advances in biotech and machine learning technologies. Last year, Facebook acquired CTRL Labs, a startup working in non-invasive neural interface technology. After that acquisition, Facebook Reality Labs (an Augmented and Virtual Reality initiative) and CTRL labs joined forces and announced to work together on advance projects including wearable and implantable devices.

There is a lot of noise about several other moves of these Big Tech players, whether IDSeq open-source tool of Facebook or Google’s Project Nightingale (a data storage and processing project by Google Cloud and Ascension, a Catholic health care system) and its recent collaboration with Sanofi and other pharma players, which at the end signifies the growing synergies between Big Tech, Biotech, and Pharma industries. There are also lots of discussions going on whether Big Tech companies should be allowed to handle the sensitive health care domain.

India’s Concerns

Discussing only vulnerability on every global trend will not suffice. Today, India is in a position where it should make a calculation about how wise is it for a huge and diversified democracy like us to wait till the real disruption in our national security posture occurs and how much are we prepared to face the consequences of delaying the actions that we should take now to protect our national security interests?

Imagine a possible situation when the same set of players, who dominate our narrations, observe and trace every single pulse of our activity, control what we read/listen and watch, suddenly start prescribing to us X and Y medicines and tests (for diseases which may not be known to us). We will end up using the search engine algorithms that are again sorted by them. This is like an endless loop, where finding the right fact/solution or any sort of cure for a normal user will become remarkably difficult. And it is more of concern for a country like India, because none of the leading actors involved in these pursuits belongs to our land.

India certainly has tremendous capabilities in technology, biotech and pharmaceutical sectors, but we could not succeed in disrupting the existing dominance. Time for brainstorming in this direction has come and today we are already in that perfect ‘pause’ phase which is needed for such moves.

The post PANDEMIC: Security Concerns Over Big Tech, Biotech and Big Pharma Loop appeared first on IMR.

As on 7 April, Covid-19 had infected 1,431,073 people globally and some 82,096 had died. United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) has estimated the loss to the global economy as over $1 trillion. International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipated that its negative impact would far exceed that of the 2008 recession, which was largely a localised aberration. This pandemic is truly global because it has affected almost 200 countries, so far.

In India, the focus has understandably been on the medical aspects of this epidemic. The prime minister of India rightly gave priority to saving human lives over preserving the economy. This Hobson’s choice had delayed reactions in Europe and America until it was too late. A total national level lockdown was, however, ordered in India at a relatively early stage of the outbreak of this pandemic. What we have missed completely so far has been any discussion about the national security implications of his pandemic. The focus in this issue of IMR, therefore, has been precisely on the national security dimensions of this pandemic.

Few people know that the USA and China have been very actively engaged in research on bat-borne strains of the coronavirus. Thus, in 2018, USA and China jointly funded a study in South China, which identified 89 new strains of bat-borne coronaviruses. The US biological research Lab at Maryland had cooperated extensively with the infamous Chinese Institute of Virology at Wuhan in this study. The US has two more labs specializing in biological warfare In Kazakhstan and Georgia. China has two labs focusing on biological warfare at Wuhan. A study of Chinese military doctrines shows a very heavy emphasis on exploiting biological warfare as first strikes in its strategy for non-contact warfare scenarios designed to bring a nation down to its knees without firing a shot. Our study indicates that over a 100 strains of novel bat-borne coronaviruses have already been isolated and harvested and, as such, there was no need to create such a genetically modified virus in the lab. The accidental release theories, thus, do not stand. That leaves us with the far more grim scenario of deliberate release/spread. Biological attacks could, thus, be the opening salvos of a deliberate non-contact warfare offensive.

National Security Dimensions

To empirically analyse this issue, we at IMR crystallized four causative scenarios and then war gamed them in the light of known facts about the biological warfare capabilities and research profiles on this subject in USA and China. We then took a very specific look at extant doctrines of military use of pathogens as part of unrestricted warfare or non-contact warfare. These four scenarios are:

•             Scenario One – Natural epidemic originating In the wet markets of Wuhan.
•             Scenario Two – Accidental release from lab in Wuhan.
•             Scenario Three – Deliberate release of natural bat-borne coronaviral strains by China in Wuhan to trigger global crisis and then make economic gains
•             Scenario 4 – A biological war between USA and China as an escalation of economic warfare.

Virologists and microbiologists so far are focused on Scenario 1, ie, a natural epidemic originating in the wet markets of Wuhan as the real cause. Their major complaint is about China’s delay in warning the world. This accepted wisdom needs greater analysis.

Both China and USA have accused each other of deliberate/ accidental release of this virus in Wuhan. Lab made/ genetically engineered coronaviruses were not required. Over a 100 such strains were naturally available. The strain that broke out in Wuhan was a milder single-mutation strain that is not so dangerous or fatal. Its gene-sequencing was done in India from our students who were evacuated from Wuhan. The one in Italy was far more dangerous and fatal (its hook protein molecule that latches on to the host human cell had undergone three mutations).

Could China have released the milder one in Wuhan and the more dangerous one in Europe (Italy) and USA to win the economic war, weaken the dollar and gain global economic hegemony? Alternatively, is the Chinese accusation of the US military releasing it in Wuhan correct or purely a propaganda stance to counter US accusations? Was that then the start of a biological war exchange? We have examined all these speculations in this issue.

Military Literature

Chinese military literature has talked of the biological aspects of war for the last two decades. It started with a book on Unrestricted Warfare by two Chinese senior colonels in 1999. More recently, in 2010, we had a book “War for Power” by Guo Jiwei of the Chinese Army University, which outlined a concept of war with biological characteristics. The 2017 edition of the PLA’s “Science of Military Strategy” has added a new chapter – “Biology as a Domain of Military Struggle”. It could not be more explicit. The PLA has been scripting biowarfare in their strategic discourse for more than two decades now. Devastated by the Covid pandemic the world cannot ignore these writings as theoretical moonshine.

The post Editorial: The Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on IMR.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has been a truly unprecedented Black Swan event with a major and devastating impact on global health and economy. 209 countries have been  hit so far and some 1,431,973 people infected till 7 April 2020, of whom some 82,096 have died. It has resulted in a complete shutdown of all the major cities in the world.

The unprecedented bloodbath in the stock markets  in USA, UK and Canada saw the markets tumble by 25-26% and by 14% in India. By sharp contrast, the stock market in China (after an initial freefall) was at 0.3 % gain. As per the UN Trade and Development Agency (UNCTAD) the global economy has taken a hit of some $1 trillion and could engender a recession, perhaps, greater in magnitude than the one we encountered in 2008. In fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the global impact of the coronavirus will approximate that of the Recession of 2008 and possibly surpass it. Other economists point out that the 2008 implosion was due to dysfunction in US housing lending and these toxic bonds largely affected US banks and their associates elsewhere. The coronavirus pandemic, however, is truly a global shock and whole nations are in lockdown including Europe and America. Its economic impact, therefore, is likely to be much more severe. The world has been shaken by this Black Swan event. How come no one saw it coming? How has it come about so suddenly? What caused it?

The chart below gives the country wise populations effected and Numbers who died till 7 April 2020.

Coronavirus Global Cases, 7 April 2020

Country       Cases            Deaths
USA             400,489        12,857
Spain           141,942        14,045
Italy            135,586        17,127
France         109,069        10,328
Germany     107,663         2,016
China            81,802         3,333
Iran              62,589         3,872
UK                55,242         6,159
Turkey          34,109            725
Switzerland   22,253            821
India              5,351            160

Causative Scenarios

This is an analyses of four likely causative scenarios, which could have triggered this pandemic.

• Scenario 1 – Natural Occurrence. It was a naturally occurring disease. It was a novel coronavirus that made the jump from bats to humans in the wet markets of Wuhan and, thereafter, spontaneously spread from this ground zero to the whole world.
• Scenario 2 – Accidental Release. It was a genetically engineered virus that escaped from a Chinese biological research facility (Institute of Virology) at Wuhan and the infection spread from there to the whole world. The release of the pathogen was purely accidental. However, China very deliberately held back information on this outbreak and let it become a pandemic.
• Scenario 3 – Deliberate Release. Recent Chinese and American studies have both identified some 89 bat-based coronaviruses in south China. Perhaps, some of these were deliberately released by China in Wuhan after it had developed their vaccines. Armed with the first movers advantage, it rapidly arrested the spread of this epidemic in China even as it ensured that it rapidly spread to USA and Europe. The aim was to torpedo the Western economies even as its own resuscitated economy stood to make major gains at the expense of other industrial powers. This non-contact warfare strategy was succinctly summed up by Wion TV  thus – China put the world in ICU and then sold it ventilators!
• Scenario 4 – Retaliation Attack. This scenario stems from accusations made by Chinese officials (Zhao Lijian of the Chinese foreign ministry) that the US military deliberately released the coronavirus In Wuhan. Should that have been the case, the Chinese seem to have responded with a coronavirus strain that deliberately targets Caucasians (or is more lethal than the strain let loose in Wuhan). As the casualties show, it has been rather lethal against Italy, America and some other European countries (depending upon the demographics of age profile of the population). This then becomes the scenario of an economic war between USA and China, which escalates into a biological warfare exchange of attacks with Wuhan as the Pearl Harbour of a new Third World War, so to speak. This has commenced with non-contact strikes engendered by biological viruses.

From the Known to the Unknown

To analyze the four scenarios in terms of probability and plausibility, the methodology we employed was to take an inventory of the biological warfare and research facilities available in China and USA, their current research areas and then the national/military doctrines for the employment of biological warfare weapons for the deliberate attack scenarios. We will proceed from the known to the unknown. To examine the first two scenarios of natural outbreak or accidental release, we examined the views expressed by virological or  micro-biological experts in the light of current research and then looked at how this pandemic has spread on ground.

Examination of Scenario One – Natural Occurrence

Somehow, the consensus so far in the scientific community is that it is a naturally evolved or mutated coronavirus and shows no signs of having been genetically engineered in a laboratory. Majority of the virologists felt that the protein sequence of the coronavirus has evolved naturally and was not constructed in a laboratory as part of genetic engineering. Hence, they seem to rule out the accidental release thesis on this ground alone. There are, however, some caveats here.

A recent study done in 2018 in South China on bats had resulted in the discovery of 89 new novel bat coronavirus strains that used the same receptors as Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. Authors of the study did the genome sequencing of two of these strains and noted that the current MERS vaccine would not be effective against them. This study was jointly funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and USAID and US National Institute of Health. So, it is not essential that the bat coronaviruses, if employed for a deliberate attack, had perforce to be genetically modified ones. Over a 100 natural strains of bat-borne coronavirus are available and could have been employed. That opens up a whole range of possible scenarios.

Four Types of Corona Virus Strains

Dr N Nageshwara Reddy, Chairman Asian institute of Gastroentolgy points out that the coronavirus is an RNA-based virus. It originated in the mid-December or earlier in Wuhan and then travelled to USA, Italy and Europe and then after a lag of 2-3weeks it came to India. Thus, the world had some 3-4 weeks to study this virus. Small mutations occurred that enabled this virus to transfer from bats to humans. Genome sequencing of this virus has since been done in four countries – USA, Italy, China and India. The genotyping of these strains are different. He points out that the genome sequencing results in India and Italy are different. It was discovered that in India, there was a single genome mutation that occurred in the spike protein of the genome. It is this spike protein area that attaches the to the host cell in humans. This made the attachment to the host cell rather weak. On the other hand, in the Italian coronavirus, three mutations had occurred making the attachment to the host cell much stronger. This made the Italian virus far deadlier than its Indian variant. The Indian sample was taken from Indian students who had been evacuated from Wuhan. This could lead to the following set of speculations:

• For purposes of any biological/ viral attack a lab made, genetically modified bug was not the only option. There were 89 novel  bat coronavirus strains that had been identified in China itself and any of these natural occurring viruses could be used for the purposes of biological attack. Only one person or a set of persons had to be infected with a given strain to mount the attack.
• Genome sequencing of these bat coronaviruses highlights the fact that different strains with differing levels of mutation had been encountered in different countries. The ones encountered in Europe, especially Italy, were far more deadly strains than those encountered in Wuhan, where the Indian students were stranded. These points may please be noted for we will return to them later in this analysis.

Deliberate Attack Scenario

To analyse this aspect we will take an inventory of biological warfare capabilities, research facilities and extant doctrines on the use of biological warfare in America and China. Due to the relatively more open nature of society in USA, far greater levels of Information are available there. Since these organisations are largely replicated in China we will commence our discussion with US facilities and doctrines. It is noteworthy that during the Cold War both the USA and USSR had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological warfare weapons. Work on these was halted in 1969 and the Toxic & Biological Weapons Convention was finally ratified in 1975.

United States of America

In 2017-2018, the Pentagon was greatly concerned that bats could be used against  the USA as biological weapons for novel coronaviruses. There were reports that the Russians and Chinese were trying to develop such capabilities. Hence, this research was deemed defensive and reactive even though it did have an offensive component. Thus, sometime in 2017, the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTRP) began funding research involving bats and other deadly pathogens including caronaviruses like MERS, SARS and Ebola, etc. There was a programme to preempt  emerging pathogenic threats (PREEMPT program)  announced in April 2018 that focused on animal reservoirs of disease – especially bats and camels. In fact, DARPA spent $10 million on one programme in 2018 to unravel complex causes of bat-borne viruses that had recently made the jump to humans. Another project studied several new strains of corona viruses carried by bats both within China and in countries bordering China. There are three key US laboratories engaged in this biological warfare-based research programmes. These are:

• US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMIRD). This facility is located at Fort Detrick Maryland and was studying deadly pathogens  including coronaviruses, Ebola and others. On 20 July 2019, the American Centre For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ordered it to halt all research after it found that it lacked facilities to decontaminate waste water. However, CDC allowed it to partially resume research in November 2019. This US facility has a decade old and close partnership with the infamous University of Wuhan’s Institute of Virology.
• Kazhakastan-based Research Institute for Bio-Safety Problems. The Khazakastan National Centre for Biotechnology had received millions of dollars from the US government. This is an Ideal location for research on bat-based coronaviruses for it borders both Russia and China. A US government-funded study here discovered yet more new strains of novel bat coronaviruses. This study was published in 2019 under the title “Discovery and Characteristics of Novel Bat Coronavirus Lineages from Khazakistan.” This study focused on bat-fauna of Central Asia with links to China and East Europe. It found great similarities in bats of China, France, Spain and South Africa suggesting co-circulation of coronaviruses with overlapping geographical distribution. Bats from Khazakastan migrate to China. This institute is the official depository of highly dangerous animal and bird infections with a collection of 278 pathogens and strains of 46 infectious diseases.
• Lugan Centre Georgia. This is said to be a covert US biological weapons laboratory. Sketchy details are available but it is ideally suited to target Russia and do research based on animal and bird species native to that region. Such research labs in far away countries also minimize risks to own populations in cases of accidental release of pathogens.

US Doctrinal Aspects

• 2018 US Bio-Defense Strategy Document. This is an authoritative text and talks of minimizing the risk of bio-threats as a vital national interest of the US. These threats could be due to naturally occurring diseases, accidents involving dangerous pathogens and, finally, deliberate attacks using bio-agents.
• Race/ Ethnicity Specific Bio-agents. The US think tank – Project for a New American Century – had openly advocated the use of race/ ethnicity specific, genetically modified bio-weapons as politically useful tools. Much research has been done in USA and Israel in developing super viruses that will target a certain type of genetic profile. This is a class of bio-weapons that exploit the MHC class of receptor molecules in the immune system that differs among races. It has to do with changing parts of that super virus that bind on the cellular receptors of targeted races. Thus, we could have bio-weapons that attack only Arabs and do not harm the Jews.
• Russia’s Maj Gen Kirilov, Head of Russian Military Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection unit, accused the US military of harvesting DNA from Russians as part of a covert bio-weapons programme for specific ethnicities. China has also accused the US military of harvesting DNA from Chinese citizens surreptitiously. Whether these are serious allegations or just pro-forma accusations for propaganda advantage, remains to be seen.

Chinese Biological Warfare Capabilities and Doctrines

Chinese society is the most opaque and secretive. Hence, little information is available in the open domain and often recourse has to be made to Western media sources. A recent  Washington Times report claimed that Wuhan has two laboratories linked to China’s biological warfare programme. It cited reports of Israeli bio-warfare specialist Dany Shoham for this. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, under its Director Maj Gen Shi Zhingli, is China’s main laboratory for bio-warfare. Gen Shing Li is also the head of Institute of Bioengineering Academy of Military Sciences at Beijing. Maj Gen Chen Wei is the Chinese military’s top epidomologist and virologist. Reportedly, it is he who led the efforts for the creation of Covid-19 and then the fight against it. These individuals have been cited by name by US lawyer Larry Klayman who has filed a $20 trillion lawsuit against the Chinese government for Covid-19. He asserts that the US intelligence agencies have adequate proof of coronavirus as a Chinese bio-weapons programme.

Some reports have cited a 3 February 2020 speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Politburo Standing Committee. It cited him as saying how, on 7 January, he personally had issued orders to prevent and control the coronavirus. “Laboratory safety was a national security issue”. This speech has been cited as evidence by proponents of the coronavirus lab leak scenario. The Chinese, however, insist that it was a natural occurrence and cited Patient Zero – a Chinese woman who was selling shrimps in the Wuhan wet market. Earlier a man had been cited.

Chinese Doctrinal Approach

In 1999, two Chinese senior Colonels Quiao Liang and Wang Xiangsi had written a path-breaking book called “Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master plan to Destroy America.” It was largely a theoretical manual on non contact warfare and using all means – military and non-military to bring an adversary to his knees – preferably without fighting.

More recently, in 2010, we had a book “War for Power” by Guo Jiwei of the Chinese Army University, which outlined a concept of war with biological characteristics.

Coming to the present, the 2017 edition of the PLA’s “Science of Military Strategy” has added a new chapter – “Biology as a Domain of Military Struggle.” It could not be more explicit. The PLA has been scripting bio-warfare in their strategic discourse for more than two decades now. The cross integration of Biotechnology, Genetic Engineering and Information Technology has aided the evolution of this line of thinking in non-contact warfare – the new buzzword in Chinese strategic thinking.

Non-Contact Warfare. Non-contact warfare seeks to employ all elements of national power to leverage their influence across multiple domains through kinetic and non-kinetic means with a view to intimidate, paralyse or denude the enemy’s politico military response capabilities and enable winning without fighting or fight with minimal physical contact of our forces. The goal of non-contact warfare is to collapse the enemy systems into confusion and disorder. Biological warfare can actualize the Sun Tzu dictum – the acme of excellence is to subdue the enemy without fighting. It is an important element of non-contact warfare.

(See also “The Speculations Against China”

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China created the coronavirus and developed it’s antidote/vaccine. My contention is that the genetically-engineered laboratory-made viruses were not really needed. There were several strains of naturally occurring bat-borne novel corona viruses available in China, which had been discovered in 2018.

To avoid/ negate strong responses from USA and other countries (USA’s nuclear doctrine and the doctrines of many other countries openly advocate use of nuclear weapons in response to biological or chemical attacks), China spread the novel coronavirus first in its own Wuhan city and the Hubei province.

My take is that the less lethal single mutation strain of bat coronavirus was released in Wuhan. It was swiftly brought under control. However, what was exported to USA and Italy and rest of Europe (via deliberately infected individuals) was the far more lethal – three mutation bat coronavirus, which latches on far more strongly to human cells.

What is noteworthy is that the national capital Beijing and the financial capital Shanghai largely remained unscathed. Thus, Beijing, with a population of 2.15 crore people had 569 infected and only 8 died. Shanghai, with a population of 2.5 crore had just 468 people infected and only 5 deaths. This ring-fencing looks suspect.

Allies of China, Russia and North Korea remained largely unscathed even as South Korea and Europe were hit. Taiwan and Japan were able to control it better due to extensive testing and mitigation strategies.

Since the Wuhan virus release was as per a ‘plan, the Chinese reaction was highly efficient. They were prepared with projects, prefabricated hospital buildings and materials to roll out a very impressive response that locked down Wuhan city and  Hubei province rapidly and efficiently. It flattened the epidemic spread curve.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government cracked down on release of information about this virus. Dr Li Wen Liang, a Chinese ophthalmologist who worked as a physician at Wuhan Central Hospital, who warned the world about the possible outbreak of SARS-like illness ‘was killed’. The Chinese government actively suppressed knowledge of the virus and prohibited professionals from publishing findings that could have saved lives.

All this while, China quietly ‘ensured’ spread of this epidemic. Wuhan was directly connected to America by over 20 flights a day. It was equally well connected with Europe. In my view, the bat coronavirus strain exported was the far more deadly three-mutation type that has shown up in genome sequencing tests in Italy. China ‘deliberately’ kept it’s airports and borders open to facilitate spread of virus to pandemic proportions. In February, even as coronavirus spread, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi pressured neighbouring countries to keep borders open for prestige and reputation reasons.

With its ‘first mover’ advantage of  having released the bat virus China rapidly controlled the epidemic to just about a lakh people and controlled the spread of this epidemic at home even as it raged in other countries.

As stock markets crashed globally, foreign companies in China resorted to panic selling of their stock holdings in high-tech companies to cut their losses and run. The Chinese government stepped in with alacrity to buy these shares at rock bottom prices and, in effect, nationalised all these high value companies. It began to aggressively buy out collapsing companies in Italy, Europe and Australia. China now planned to position it’s economy in strategic sectors to box out other industrialised nations still reeling from coronavirus impact. As per China State Administration of Science & Technology Industry for National Defense – “China must jump start it’s economy to pave way for international market expansion after this epidemic is over.”

China rapidly returned to normalcy. It jump started production of coronavirus-related equipment, masks, protective personal  equipment (PPE), and ventilators. To quote Wion TV, “As China put the rest of the world in ICU, it began to manufacture ventilators.”

As Michael Sobelik said, “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started this fire but they are angling to emerge from its ashes as the saviours.” China was the arsonist posing to be the fire-fighter. The aim simply is to turn coronavirus into a net positive for the CCP.

The Chinese Narrative

China, in its defence, claimed that it’s response bought time for the rest of the world to prepare and, in propaganda terms – China is a Global Health provider that is shipping masks and test kits to other nations. It sent health teams to Italy and Iran and supplied them face masks.

The sum of this thesis is that the Chinese deliberately created a biological Pearl Harbour in Wuhan as per a methodical plan. Then they let the epidemic radiate outwards to the world even as they put up an impressive performance (premeditated) to control it and exploit it for great economic advantage and profit. It is a spine chilling scenario. China will have to satisfy the world on this account.

A variant of this scenario is that though the outbreak was natural, China deliberately delayed it’s news and impact. Resultant lack of situational awareness led to this becoming a global pandemic.

Biological War Scenario?

These observations can lend themselves to another set of interpretations.

• Is what we have seen the first silent exchange of biological warfare shots as part of an unrelenting economic war between USA and China?
• Is what the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said – the Americans hit first with release of a natural bat coronavirus strain in Wuhan – true?
• The Chinese hit back with deadlier (three-mutation) strain of the virus to strike US and Europe in a major way.
• Winners in this war will be the nations that are able to rapidly clamp down the epidemic within their borders even as they ensure that it flares in adversary nations.
• Have we just witnessed the opening salvos of a Global Third World War? These are not nuclear-tipped missile exchanges but silent salvos of biological virus taking a fearful toll with vials released clandestinely and through deliberately infected humans.

The gap in this thesis is – what was the US motivation for striking first with a naturally occurring bat coronavirus? Since the USA is the stronger side, its motivation for employing asymmetric attacks is far lesser than China’s. Chinese military literature, on the other hand, has openly been advocating such a biological strike.

In the previous and this article the plausible scenarios for the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic have been sketched out. Reports have been cited with facts from open sources. We still need conclusive evidence to take a final judgment call. This judgment will have to factor in the biological warfare doctrines and capabilities of the nations concerned and the type of research they were engaged in. The reader can draw his own conclusions. We are on the cusp of radical changes in the nature of war and war fighting. Non-contact warfare may well be the dangerous new norm. The circumstantial evidence may be all there. What we need is the smoking gun. Possibly, it will come to light with time.

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China rushed health professionals from the armed forces from Hubei province and other areas to Wuhan to tackle the load of patients.

Forecasts suggest global GDP will fall by 0.9 per cent in 2020. Western countries at the heart of the current pandemic will be among the hardest hit – with GDP predicted to fall over the calendar year by 7 per cent in Italy, 6.5 per cent in Germany, 5.3 per cent in the UK and 4.9 per cent in the US.

Imported Cases and Local Transmission

The patient was infected after attending a meeting in Singapore and confirmed positive in Malysia

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All right. Well, take care yourself. I guess that’s what you’re best, presence old master? A tremor in the Force. The last time felt it was in the presence of my old master. I have traced the Rebel spies to her.

Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. I can’t get involved! I’ve got work to do! It’s not that I like the Empire, I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands. The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands. Leave that to me. Send a distress signal, and inform the Senate that all on board were killed. Red Five standing by.

I find your lack of faith disturbing. A tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old master. Hey, Luke! May the Force be with you. Red Five standing by. Red Five standing by. Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. I find your lack of faith disturbing. The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. As you wish.

Thanks for looking at our theme

I need your help, Luke. She needs your help. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. Oh God, my uncle. How am I ever gonna explain this? As you wish. Escape is not his plan. I must face him, alone. You mean it controls your actions?

Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands. Ye-ha! The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. I find your lack of faith disturbing.

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. As you wish.

Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands. Ye-ha! The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands.

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. In my experience, there is no such thing as luck. Red Five standing by.

A tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old master. I have traced the Rebel spies to her. Now she is my only link to finding their secret base. Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.

I need your help, Luke. She needs your help. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. Red Five standing by. Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands. The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands.

All right. Well, take care of yourself, Han. I guess that’s what you’re best at, ain’t it? A tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old master. I have traced the Rebel spies to her.

Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. I can’t get involved! I’ve got work to do! It’s not that I like the Empire, I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now. It’s such a long way from here. I call it luck.

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. In my experience, there is no such thing as luck. Red Five standing by.

You are a part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take her away! Red Five standing by. All right. Well, take care of yourself, Han. I guess that’s what you’re best at, ain’t it? Alderaan? I’m not going to Alderaan. I’ve got to go home. It’s late, I’m in for it as it is.

Oh God, my uncle. How am I ever gonna explain this? Hey, Luke! May the Force be with you. I find your lack of faith disturbing.

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The Army sent instructions to augment medical facilities and infrastructure. These included:

• Increasing the capacity for surveillance and isolation at Military, Base and Command Hospitals.
• Setting up a 45-bed isolation facility and a 10-bed ICU facility at field hospitals exclusively for COVID-19 patients at six hours’ notice.
• Keeping 30 per cent of field hospitals on standby for constructing COVID hospitals in COVID hotspots.
• Preparing Quick Reaction Medical Teams to mobilise at six hours’ notice.

Armed Forces Hospitals Geared Up

Twenty-eight hospitals of the army, air force and navy across India were earmarked, by 28 March, as COVID-19 hospitals to handle and treat coronavirus cases, which was part of the measures of the defence forces to help civil authorities.

Separately, five hospitals of the three defence services can carry out COVID testing. These include Army Hospital Research and Referral, Delhi; Command Hospital Air Force, Bangalore and Armed Forces Medical College, Pune; Command Hospital (Central Command) Lucknow; Command Hospital (Northern Command) Udhampur. Six additional hospitals were also being equipped with the resources to begin such testing.

Some of the major hospitals among the 28 earmarked are – Military Hospital Avadi, Base Hospital Lucknow, Military Hospital Gaya, Military Hospital Belgaum, Military Hospital Patiala, Military Hospital Panagarh, INHS (Indian Naval Hospital Ship) Nivarini in Odisha, INHS Jeevanti in Goa and 4 Air Force Hospital in Kalaikunda. Other hospitals are at Dimapur, Suratgarh, Ahmedabad, Akhnoor, Hindon, Karwar, Golconda and Bangalore.

The hospitals have prepared logistics plans for evacuation, establishing isolation facilities and treatment areas, and manpower and equipment management. Placement of medical and paramedical staff with the necessary equipment for handling these cases had started.

The new facilities to be setup are separate from the existing isolation facilities that are already part of these hospitals. These hospitals are in addition to the ones that have already been converted to handle coronavirus cases of the armed forces and civilians, following the setting up of isolation wards.

For formations along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, isolation wards at peripheral hospitals have been geared up.

The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Command Hospital Air Force Bangalore (CHAFB) has been designated as the first laboratory in the air force to undertake COVID-19 testing. The IAF has nine quarantine facilities, each with 200-300 personnel capacity each, at nodal IAF bases across the country.

The Indian Navy has set up isolation facilities at its premier hospital INHS Asvini at Mumbai to treat Covid-19 cases. The Navy’s Command Headquarters at Kochi and Vizag have also been directed to set up similar facilities. Separate “Fever Clinics” are functioning at all naval hospitals to prevent the spread of infection from undiagnosed cases.

Evacuation and Quarantine

Indians and foreigners evacuated from COVID-19 affected countries were housed and observed at six quarantine facilities run by the Armed Forces at Manesar, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Chennai, Hindan and Mumbai. These included evacuees from Iran, Italy, China, Japan and Malaysia besides IAF evacuation flight crew.

In addition to the active quarantine centres, more facilities were made operational at Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Dundigal near Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur.

Precautionary Measures

A number of measures were taken by the Indian Army to prevent the pandemic among its personnel so that the Army personnel were available to do their primary task and support the people in the fight against Covid.

Intensive information, education and communication campaigns were launched for serving personnel. Leave extension of those on leave as well as curtailment of leave to bare minimum was imposed. Segregation facilities were set up to observe troops already back from leave from various states.

Arrangements were made for troops returning from leave or out-station duties reporting to screening centres established at various transit camps. After the medical screening they were being quarantined for 14 days in the quarantine room established in the units.

Advisories were issued by AFMS on social distancing, cancellation of courses and training, use of masks, preventive measures to be taken at workplace and guidelines on COVID surveillance and contact tracing.

The Military Operations Directorate issued directions to curtail leave. All troops returning from leave, especially from Covid hotspots were screened and quarantined on arrival.

Training activities, including collective training activities scheduled at units and brigades, were postponed or cancelled. Physical training and games continued with the required minimum distance between individuals.

All courses due to start from March 23 or afterwards were postponed. Non-essential conferences and seminars involving moving personnel may were cancelled or postponed. Entry to essential stores and CSD was regulated and later cancelled.

While the army continued to function normally on the borders, officers posted in headquarters – who amount to 40 per cent of the overall cadre – were asked to function from home.

In the barracks to avoid congestion, distance between the beds has been increased, to avoid crowding in dining halls, meals are served at staggered timings, social distancing is being maintained and adequate hand-washing points are in place.

Assistance to Maldives

A 14-member team of medical officers and paramedical staff of Army Medical Corps was sent to the Maldives for capacity building measures and assist in setting up their own testing, treatment and quarantine capacities. The team stayed in the Maldives for 10 days and returned on 23 March 2020. AFMS was ready to dispatch a Rapid Response Team to Nepal and other countries for assisting them with the COVID situation.

At Sea

The Indian Navy put in a series of precautionary measures to prevent any outbreak on its ships by minimising port calls at foreign shores and continuous medical monitoring of its sailors.

The Navy has more than 20 ships out at sea at any point in time which includes coastal patrols and harbour patrols, besides the mission-based deployments in international waters. More than 3,000 naval personnel are on board these vessels. These measures call for significant logistics support, including critical fuel supply to naval ships.

The Navy has taken to replenishment at sea, including refuelling of ships in international waters using its own vessels deployed as part of Operation Sankalp, which started in July 2019 in the Gulf of Oman, anti-piracy missions near the Gulf of Aden, and naval deployment for patrolling a strategic choke point of the Strait of Malacca.

The Navy also instituted measures to continuously monitor the health and symptoms of its personnel who are part of any planned sailing. Medical teams on board vessels were monitoring the health of personnel. This became critical after US sailors on a US navy ship, with 5,000 US military personnel onboard, tested positive for coronavirus.

Personal Protective Equipment

Provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was a challenge with adequate quantities only for use in hospitals. Additional procurement was being planned to tide over the crisis, since the Armed Forces were directed to augment medical resources for the civil health set up.

Northern Command

17 helplines were established by Northern Command in the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh for the civilian population. Mobile vehicle check posts, which are usually deployed for counter terrorist operations, were educating the population on Covid-19 by way of audio broadcasts through loudspeakers. Posters and banners were also pasted at multiple places in Urdu, Hindi and English.

Ordnance Factory Board

The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), which produces arms, ammunition and equipment for the military, has separately designated 285 beds as Covid-19 quarantine facilities. These include 40 beds in Jabalpur, thirty beds each at Ishapore, Cossipore, Khadki, Kanpur, Khamaria and Ambajhari; 25 beds at Ambernath and 20 beds each at Avadi and Medak.

The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) is utilizing its facilities to try and manufacture personal protection equipment and face masks, in accordance with a pilot order placed by HLL Lifecare Limited, a public sector unit under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Comments

With almost 7,000 specialists and super specialists spread across India, and over 130 hospitals, military medicine is an asset that rarely comes into limelight. Supported by thousands of nursing officers and more than 40,000 paramedics, AFMS is the medical backbone on which the three Services have survived over the years. And this is the backbone to which India turned to when a unique medical crisis threatened from across the borders.

Over the years, medical cases have included everything between combat wounds, high altitude ailments and childbirth. This is only possible because of the unique dedication of military medical personnel. In India, there is no state-run medical service like the AFMS.

Military hospitals are even more remarkable for their specialised facilities are on par with the most expensive and posh private sector establishments. Other than the various AIIMS hospitals set up across India, there is no state-run medical service that can match what the military has managed.

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The term Big Pharma is used to refer collectively to the global pharmaceutical industry. Conspiracy theorists use the term Big Pharma for an abstract entity comprising corporations, regulators, NGOs, politicians, and often physicians, all with a finger in the trillion-dollar prescription pharmaceutical pie

Social media enables these theories to spread faster and have more staying power since it is far easier for people to construct their own version of reality through social media. Conspiracy theories are a way to try and make sense of the world that in that moment does not particularly make sense.

Four Threads

There are four threads in the Big Pharma conspiracy theory:

•             There are all-natural cures for serious illnesses including cancer, herpes, arthritis, AIDS, acid reflux disease, various phobias, depression, obesity, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, attention deficit disorder, muscular dystrophy, and that these are all being deliberately hidden and suppressed from the public by the Food and Drug Administration, the  Federal Trade Commission, and the major food and drug companies.

•             AIDS is not caused by HIV and that Nevirapine had been unethically administered to pregnant women in clinical trials, leading to a fatality. The resulting publicity represented a breakthrough moment for AIDS denialism.

•             Big Pharma has a cure for cancer and is suppressing it so that they can maintain a profit is believed by as much as 27% of the American public according to a 2005 survey. The argument is that pharmaceutical companies are slowing down research for a comprehensive cure for cancer by developing high-profit, single-purpose treatments rather than focusing on a supposed cure-all for all cancers; however, the idea that holding back a cure would result in more profit than presenting one is not considered a very strong argument.

•             Pharmaceutical companies suppress negative research about their drugs by financially pressuring researchers and journals.

Vaccine Against Covid-19

As confirmed cases of the coronavirus continue to rise, President Donald Trump has quickly embraced the pharmaceutical industry he once vilified for its high prices. The industry has jumped on the opportunity, highlighting the money it’s spent on R&D makes it prepared. Drug companies have for years contended that higher list prices are needed to help pay for important R&D. Critics have said they inflate the extent of these costs.

“Today, we are meeting with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies – the biggest in the world, most prestigious, the ones that get down to the bottom line very quickly,” Trump declared at a meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force and pharmaceutical executives, on 2 March. As the meeting closed, Trump called out J&J and Pfizer as being among the “greatest in the world,” nearly two years after his tweet that Pfizer  “should be ashamed” of itself raising its prices and threatened to implement a drug pricing plan the industry was trying to stave off.

Trump signed a Bill, on 6 March, which siphoned more than $3 billion to the research and development of vaccines, as well as therapeutics and diagnostics. 

“I am disappointed that Republicans folded to Big Pharma and prevented us from including a clause that would have prevented drug manufacturers from pricing a vaccine or treatment out of reach in the commercial market as well,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois said in a statement when the bill passed Congress.

Pharmaceutical companies, meantime, said they do not make money in outbreaks.

Right-wing Influencers

Right-wing influencers including Dr Shiva Ayyadurai, MIT-PhD, Republican candidate for the Massachusetts senate in USA, have been waging an information war against Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and top-ranking member of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force. They claim that Fauci is working with Hillary Clinton and the deep state to cause an economic collapse and discredit President Donald Trump.

A leading expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Fauci was quick to caution against over-optimism of President Trump’s recommendation that patients with coronavirus be treated with an anti-malaria drug called hydroxychloroquine as a sort of “cure-all.” Despite showing some measure of efficacy, the drug has not been sufficiently tested for widespread use in hospitals throughout the United States. Conspiracy theorists believe that Dr. Fauci’s cautious recommendations were signs that he is an agent of the Deep State who wants to spread “fear porn” and undermine President Trump’s message of hope.

These theorists believe that Trump is waging a secret war against a global criminal organization, and have spent much of the Covid-19 outbreak struggling to fit the disease into their narratives. At first, they theorized the virus was a bioweapon created by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Then, a sizable contingent suggested that the virus was actually a deep state hoax meant to damage Trump politically.

Dr Ayyadurai is one of the leading purveyors of the conspiracy. He tweeted: “Time to expose “Deep State” Emperor Fauci & his “illustrious” career of #FakeScience imposing “one-size-fits-all” Medieval Mandated Medicine to profit his Big Pharma minions, the expense of crashing our economy. More to come….”

Dr Shiva Ayyadurai’s Theory

Here is a sampling of what Dr Shiva Ayyadurai told Ari Whitten in a podcast on The Energy Blueprint.

“The Big Pharma Deep State is evil. They need to be completely destroyed and annihilated. Sometimes you have to destroy before you can create.

“The entire medical model of Big Pharma is designed that they don’t want a simple solution. What about sunlight? Well, that’s too simple. What about green leafy vegetables? Oh, that’s too simple. What about vitamin A, D, and C?

“HIV does not cause AIDS. There’s millions of people with HIV, they’re not dying. 70% of Zambia, I believe has HIV….It’s not true. What happens is the viruses are constantly coming in and out of our body, every instant, every millisecond, our body knows how to process it or we wouldn’t exist.

“What is the problem is a dysfunctional, weakened immune system caused by poor choices and infrastructure where we have dirty air, dirty water, dirty food. The lawyer, lobbyists, politicians and the deep state of Big Pharma has no intention of fixing that. That’s what this is about.

“You’re looking at an environment now where we have a set of people who think they know better than everyone. In my opinion, it’s a web and I think all of this will come out, but the issue is, we should all get it out sooner. It’s the Gates Foundation. It’s Clinton Global Initiative, it’s Fauci, it’s the CDC, WHO, and China. These entities have made an unholy alliance against working people throughout the world who are starting to dissent before this. If you think about in Wuhan province, there were massive protests, which no one wants to talk about, anti-pollution protests, Hong Kong was blowing up.

“It’s all right before you and the fundamental goal here is a deep state Big Pharma. Next year, this time, their goal is “Hey, I want to get my license.” “Really? You need to get your vaccines.” “Hey, I want to go into a gym.” “Where are your vaccines.”

“It’s a Big Big Pharma deep state model. It is entirely intended to make trillions of dollars. That’s what we’re looking at not billions, trillions. They would crash the US economy forcing us to print $6 trillion so they, every year can get a recurring revenue of $7 trillion because imagine 7.2 billion people now having to pay, let’s say per capita about 1,000 bucks for farmers vaccines, because the pharmaceutical companies are losing money, they’re failing. Their entire model of drugs is not working. People are starting to eat healthier, people are waking up. Their only conclusion is, “Jesus, we’re going to have to force vaccinate everyone, and we’re going to have to make immunization the goal.” People need to get it through their heads that the pharma companies are phenomenal marketers, just the ultimate of marketing. What we’re witnessing right here is literally a performance art piece of the highest order taking place.

“Now you project 100,000 dying [of Covid-19] because Fauci, fear-based Pharma Fauci who bases his entire existence on fake science needs big numbers. He needs big numbers….I want to ask them why they haven’t prescribed vitamin D. Why? You’ll find out because they know nothing about- They probably never even heard the word cathelicidins. They don’t even know that cathelicidins are created when you consume vitamin D and they are used to disrupt the cell membrane.

“The fact that Fauci has not talked about vitamin D, he’s not talked about vitamin A, vitamin C. Either he doesn’t care about the human body, knows nothing about it or this is not a conspiracy. I think he’s on the Leadership Council of the Gates Foundation.

“Just project yourself one year from now. Flu season comes, what do you think is going to happen? Your neighbor is going to come supporting Gestapo police coming into your home saying, “Ari, you better get vaccinated.” In fact, Denmark just passed a law that they have the right to come into your home with police and vaccinate you. What are we now? What you’re talking about is the end of freedom as we know it.

“Infectious diseases, 98% of measles were wiped away long before vaccines…What’s occurred since 1960, ’70 in this country is a destruction again of the infrastructure. How many pesticides are in our water? How many pollutants are in the air right now? Number one source of death in the world is air pollution. Dirty water, dirty air, and then dirty food. All brought to you by the same elites who control big AG and Big Pharma. That’s what they’ve done….People’s immune systems are decaying and they cannot address that fundamental issue. That’s what we should have a public emergency.

“That solution is, we need to make sure that people take care of their immune systems. It’s immune health, it’s immune health, it’s immune health. Well, how do you take care of your immune systems? Well, you have to ensure that you’re getting the right nutrients into the body for the right person at the right time. You have to make sure that the environment around you is conducive to that. That’s it. Whether it’s this virus, another virus, et cetera….I wrote to my letter to President Trump. Let’s take all the healthy people, make sure their vitamin D and A levels are proper and I recommended what I would do. The second level is immuno-compromised. Those people need a good booster of D and A, vitamin D and A, and support. Then you take the people who actually have Covid-19 and give them a nice high dosage to protect them from any virus. Then the people who are in critical care in the ICUs, they should get those protocols but they should all be getting 100 grams unless they have some really serious dysfunction of vitamin C and drip.

“This is not a conspiracy theory, when China has 200 million cameras. When we’re installing cameras everywhere that can read your lips, what freedom do you actually have?

“I’ll end with this, when the British came to India you know what they did? Indians used to produce the most amazing textiles, weavers, mills. You know what they did? They stopped manufacturing in India, shut down those people. In fact, there’s a story where they cut the thumbs of 5,000 weaver’s and they moved all of that to England, Manchester, England. Well think about what’s happened in the United States, we’ve moved all of our manufacturing to China.

“Are we entering into a state capitalist environment? 10 people merge with the government, control everyone else. That’s what Bill Gates wants. That’s what Mark Zuckerberg wants. That’s what Hillary Clinton wants. They do not want people from below thinking for themselves. That’s what this is all about. This has nothing to do with a virus.”

Conclusion

Some credence must be attached to the claims of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumini (BS, MS, MEng, PhD) especially since he is a Republican candidate for the 2020 elections to senate. Yet, his claim to be the “inventor of email”, based on the electronic mail software called “Email” he wrote as a New Jersey high school student in the late 1970s, has been controversial. Ayyadurai also gained recognition for two reports: the first questioning the working conditions of India’s largest scientific agency; the second questioning the safety of genetically modified soybeans.

But there is no denying that as the cornavirus does more harm, spreads illness, death and catastrophe around the world, virtually no economic sector has been spared from harm. Yet amid the mayhem from the global pandemic, one industry is not only surviving, it is profiting handsomely – Pharma.

Some of the criticism against harma companies is justified. They view Covid-19 as a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity. The world needs pharmaceutical products, of course. Dozens of companies are now vying to make them.

The ability to make money off of pharmaceuticals is already uniquely large in the U.S., which lacks the basic price controls other countries have. During the current crisis, pharmaceutical makers may have even more leeway than usual because of language industry lobbyists inserted into an $8.3 billion coronavirus spending package, passed on 6 March, to maximize their profits from the pandemic.

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