Is the United States trying to wipe out the black populations of Africa?

Follow @JohnPlatinumG This is a serious question. One respected Liberian doctor and professor of plant pathology, Dr Cyril Broderick, believes his country may be testing out strains of Ebola and Aids viruses on native Africans. Why would be difficult to understand were it not for a flagging economy at home which is only kept afloat because of petrodollar debtor states. It is impossible for America to eradicate its own debt. This is the real reason for the wars in Iraq and Libya. The article just linked explains why. It is the best summary I have read this year.

Published in a Liberian newspaper, the Daily Observer, Professor Broderick speculates that the US Department of Defence (DOD) is behind an experiment which, if true, would have far-reaching consequences for the African continent, and civilisation in general. At the 2013 Bilderberg Group meeting held at the Grove Hotel in Watford one of the items on the agenda was 'Africa's Challenges' which was significant in being devoid of any academic or political figure from Africa. The secretive Bilderberg Group consists of powerful people like Henry Kissinger, heads of states and high-ranking politicians many of whom also belong to the Committee of 300. These people are self-appointed would-be administrators of world policy.

Some of the crowd at the 2013 Bilderberg Fringe opposed to world domination by an unelected elite

There is no doubt that with all its wars the United States has its eyes fixed firmly on world domination to protect the petrodollar. Its disregard for international law and the imposition of its own ever stricter domestic laws against US citizens is a reflection of the current crisis. Would the United States resort to deliberately infesting Africans with man-made killer viruses? The answer is yes, if they can get away with it. They have got away with similar things before, nearly always perpetrated against blacks or Asians. The classic example though was the virtual elimination and subjugation of native Americans. Descendants of those who survived are still treated often as second-class citizens in the ancestral land of their birth.

In the 1960s with the demise of the British Empire the UK came to an agreement with Mauritius to grant it independence but had a clause written in to retain the Chagos Islands - Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and Salomen - just to have a bit of "rock" in the area. But the plan was much more than that. All the islanders were removed on the instruction of the United States, all the dogs were gassed and in true conspiratorial fashion the US and UK had a leasing agreement to build a naval and military base upon the bit of "rock". Chagossians were deliberately displaced without work or homes so that the United States could tell Congress that the islands were uninhabited. Diego Garcia is one of the places where Muslims were extraordinarily rendered (and probably tortured) prior to 9/11 and afterwards. It was also an island in the vicinity where the Malaysian airliner disappeared mysteriously and towards which it appeared to be heading.

Would the US experiment on unwitting Africans? In May 1997 Bill Clinton apologised to the eight Tuskegee survivors of  a syphilis experiment which lasted for forty years and began in 1932. Alabama victims were given syphilis and deliberately left untreated to see how the disease progressed. Those experimented on were Americans of African descent, in other words black Americans. As if that was not bad enough it was not the only syphilis experiment on non-white Americans. From 1946 to 1948 seven hundred Guatemalans were infected by the US with syphilis to monitor what effect penicillin had on the disease. In October 2010 Hilary Clinton apologised to the Guatemalan government for this experiment.

Apologies that take place 50, 60 or 70 years after the experiments that caused so much physical and mental pain for the sufferers and those who nursed them are of no consolation to blacks who died horrific deaths due to Dr Josef Mengele type experiments perpetrated by the United States. As one of the most powerful of countries it has become a neo-nazi proponent of the twenty-first century eugenics for its elite and a widespread abuser of its poor. It is racist-religionist government comprising white supremacists. The United Kingdom follows very closely behind.

What about the United Nations? The United Nations (UN) was set up after the Second World War to replace an emasculated League of Nations which could not deal with Japan's intrusion into Manchuria, Mussolini's adventures into Ethiopia and the rise of National Socialism and racism against Jews, Communists, Romany gypsies and other minorities in Germany. Today the UN, which should be stopping the illegal war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq is as powerless as the old League of Nations. It is even worse than that because the UN has become part of the problem. Today it is no more than a servant of US foreign policy. Take the case of cholera in Haiti.

As Dr Dady Chery writes: "The introduction of the cholera into Haiti could not have been more efficient if it had been deliberate." Haiti had never experienced cholera until more than 1,200 UN troops who had formerly been in the middle of a cholera epidemic in Nepal, were stationed there. 5 days later, in the summer of 2010, cholera was seen for the first time in Haiti. 7,000 people died in the epidemic and despite promises to withdraw troops the UN renews contracts to keep a presence in Haiti to protect its puppet, Michel Martelly, and keep him in power. Martelly came to power in an undemocratic election which excluded the main party, Fanmi Lavalas (the former party of Aristide).

I think Dr Broderick has hit the nail on the head.

Close Guantanamo now

Follow @JohnPlatinumG As the US/UK/NATO embark on another illegal war against ISIS the torture camp at Guantanamo Bay is still operating and still torturing Muslims who have had no trial. Emad Hassan has been held there since 2002. I have just received a letter in which he describes how his brother Abu was dragged from his cell by the FCE (Forcible Cell Extraction) team. What they did to him is diabolical. They broke one wrist and the other was badly swollen, applied strangulation techniques, kneed him in the back and left him in his cell unable to move his finger, hand or leg. “Every nerve, every vein, every muscle seems to be screaming with me” said Abu. Emad could not sleep. He has been held without trial and was told, seven years ago, along with Shaker Aamer that he had done no wrong. So why are these people being held in captivity by the torturing USA?

Reprieve http://www.reprieve.org/ desperately needs funds to take action against officers from the FCE team who did this dreadful deed. Force-feeding is still going on and people held in Guantanamo are worried that the world will forget about them. Please donate at the above link. Thanks.

Think positive Scotland

Follow @JohnPlatinumG With 24 hours before polling stations open to accommodate voters in Thursday's referendum it will be a relief when the result is known, whichever way it goes. After much deliberation I came to the conclusion that Scotland and England could benefit from Scottish independence. Some of my thoughts are given here.

Whatever the outcome I wish Scotland well. In England we have three parties that can hardly be separated in policy. They all support a No result and have united to offer Scotland new measures of  independence should voters put their faith in Westminster to serve its interests. This is something it has singularly failed to do since 1707. But now it looks serious. Scotland, like New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India and South Africa could find itself in self-governance on Friday, though the transition will take some months.

If the Yes vote is carried it sets the bar for England. Scotland does not have to respond in sending young men to die in NATO wars. On education and health it is already streets ahead. Think positive Scotland.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Birmingham birds

Follow @JohnPlatinumG About a month ago I bought a camera which allows me to take photographs of some of the local birdlife. The very small ones are really difficult to capture and ideally I need a more powerful telephoto lens. This morning a young robin remained close enough for me to take a few snaps. A beautiful songster (member of the thrush family) it is the most common English bird.

Yesterday I got quite close to a carrion crow with white primary and secondary wing feathers. What creates this pigmentation change is a gene mutation called leucism. One of the reasons I saved up for the camera was to try and get some pictures of a white magpie of which I had taken photos with my phone but no close-ups. Alas I have not seen this bird for three or four months, and it looks like it may no longer be around.

My first capture, of which I am quite proud, was of a buzzard. Buzzards are commonplace in Wales. Unusually they appear to be moving inland and my information is that there are six known breeding pairs in Birmingham.

Mute swans are easy to capture on camera. Graceful and slow-moving they are also very powerful birds.

But it is the offspring, the cygnet or 'ugly duckling' as Hans Christian Andersen called it, that has caused most comment. The photo below picks out the veins in its webbed foot as the sunlight shines through.

From another angle a circular nodule can be seen at the base of its foot. It made me question whether that is where the term signet ring is derived. After all it appears to be wearing it at the base of its middle claw and it is chunky too! Or is this just a coincidence.

Finally here is a heron. It can regularly be found at the same spot at the same time of day. It is encouraging to know that our rivers are recovering as the heron and kingfisher populations increase in Birmingham.

The Great Escape - Füssen railway station needs it now

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Some old railway stations should have a preservation order and one of these is the Station at Füssen in the Allgäu region of Bavaria. This was the station depicted in the classic film The Great Escape. Today it is under threat from a developer with the full complicity of Füssen's own town council. Preserved railway stations, as well as saving for posterity a piece of local and national heritage, have a commercial value as museums and sets for period films and TV dramas and documentaries. The old station at Loughborough still operates commercially and old steam trains run from there to a fixed timetable. The station at Füssen predates the one at Loughborough.

Call it nostalgia but the repeat viewings of Captain Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) pounding a ball into his baseball glove was one iconic memory from what can only be described as an enduringly good film. The Great Escape, (1963) although it was fiction based on fact, showed that under duress prisoners could work together to the greater good, and even escape in numbers. In reality prisoners did escape from penal institutions in the forties but it would be impossible today in modern prisons of which there seem to be a growing number. In these people are held in solitary confinement, often without any hope, other than by confessing, whether guilty or innocent. Sometimes they are incarcerated because they know too much.

Old Father Time catches up with everybody, prisoners and non-prisoners alike, and has now caught up with most of the stars from The Great Escape although David McCallum still walks this mortal coil. Sadly James Garner died in July this year, and Richard Attenborough in August. So, for sentimental reasons alone, it would be sad to see the old railway station go too. Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the film and an exhibition was staged at the station to celebrate its longevity. The station was bought by a company "Hubert Schmid Bauunternehmen GmbH" for something in the region of 300,000 Euros. The company's plan now, having waited until after the anniversary, is to demolish the old station and build a modern convenience centre.

Unless a company or consortium can come up with an alternative plan that is what will happen. It needs someone with vision and money to find a way of preserving this old and unique example of Bavarian history or it will be reduced to rubble. Suggestions are welcome. What those without money can do is to like the Facebook page about this railway station. Wouldn't it be good to see a centenary celebration in another fifty years. I know I'd like to see it.

Here is a petition you can sign.